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The Twins, seeing themselves in the glass, were much pleased with their appearance, and said they felt sure no one in town had hair like theirs; which in all likelihood was true. With their father, however, it was quite otherwise. Indeed, what he thought was never fully known. He was taken suddenly ill, and sank back upon his couch, where he rapidly became worse, and could get no further than to ask his children to call their mother. When she appeared, Aurelius Pickle smiled feebly and motioned her toward the cupboard where he kept his Chemical Substances. He could do no more.

This, in brief, is how there came to be such a person as the Widow Pickle. It is not unusual for widows to have Twins, but seldom could be found such Twins as these.

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CHAPTER II

THE WIDOW PICKLE'S STRANGE VISITOR

So badly did the Widow Pickle feel over the peculiar color of her Twins' hair that for a long time she forgot to obey her husband's last wish and look in the cupboard. At last, however, she bethought herself of this request and hastened to the place where Aurelius Pickle had kept his Chemical Substances.

She found several strange-looking boxes, with all sorts of powders and pastes in them, but with no names on the backs to tell what were their contents. She feared to make any experiments, lest she might stain her 5own hair either blue or green or some other unfashionable color; so all she could do was to look and wonder what was in the boxes. After several days, she concluded to mix some different powders together. She took one small box with a red cover and another that had a black cover, and, pouring small portions of the powder from each of these on a plate, she began to stir the two together.

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Nothing happened for some moments. "Chemistry is rather hard, after all," said the Widow Pickle to herself. "I thought that all there was to it was stirring things together. I formerly noticed that when my poor dear husband did that, something nearly always happened."

At last, disappointed that 

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