III.
A FAMILY POLYGON.
Mrs. Grubb's family circle was really not a circle at all; it was rather a polygon—a curious assemblage of distinct personages.
There was no unity in it, no membership one of another. It was four ones, not one four. If some gatherer of statistics had visited the household, he might have described it thus:—
"Mrs. S. Cora Grubb, widow, aged forty years.
"Alisa Bennett, feeble-minded, aged ten or twelve years.
"Atlantic and Pacific Simonson, twins, aged four years."
The man of statistics might seek in vain for some principle of attraction or cohesion between these independent elements; but no one who knew Mrs. Grubb would have been astonished at the sort of family that had gathered itself about her. Queer as it
