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THE TWIN STARS.
149

Whatever the one wished the other agreed to, and they would have been a pair of very happy children had it not been that their mother was incessantly scolding and gave them no peace, always driving them here and there, and making them do unpleasant things in order that she might have something to rate them about.

One night the mother went out on the reef to fish by torchlight. She had very good sport for some time and had almost filled her basket before midnight, by which time the tide had grown so nearly full that she was no longer able to continue fishing. When she had returned to her dwelling she set to work to cook the fish, and according to the invariable native custom, awoke her husband that he also might have his portion of the meal. The food was divided into four portions, one for each parent, another for the boy, and the fourth for the girl. The husband wished that the children should be awakened in order to partake of the savoury cooked food, but the mother would not agree that the little twins should be aroused from their slumbers, so she carefully put their portions away into baskets that they might eat them the next morning.

Although Piri and her brother were supposed to be asleep they were really awake, but they