Aunt Ruth met Ilse Miller in the market one sunny morning in September.

"Have you heard the news at Evensong?" she crowed. "There's a new little boy and girl there--yes, Em'ly's gone and had twins! Both healthy and the mother as well. The boy they're calling Douglas Murray Kent and the girl, Juliet Starr Kent. Oh, they're the prettiest things you've ever laid eyes on. But you'll come over and see for yourself. Anyway--I must fly! All the folks are there now--I've come out just to get breakfast. Teddy was supposed to do it, but he was so overwrought, poor lad. I almost think this was harder on him than Em'ly--almost."

Of course Aunt Ruth did not mean to hurt Ilse. She was from Shrewsbury, which was out of the way of Blair Water, and no one liked her enough to tell her anything anyway. She had not heard of the rift between Ilse and Emily. No one talked of it, anyway. There was nothing to tell. Ilse herself hardly knew what to make of it. But despite Aunt Ruth's best intentions, as Ilse watched Ruth Dutton scuttle happily off, she felt tears well up in her eyes. Perhaps they were tears of happiness--but perhaps they were tears of jealousy. Why should Emily have two healthy little babies when Ilse had none to hold? Even more likely they were tears of sadness--Ilse remembered her lost friendship with a pang.

Before anyone could see her, crying in the market like a buffoon, she hurried off home.

* * *

"Douglas and Juliet," said Aunt Elizabeth, who had returned flushed and excited--with a new hair-do!--from Little Elizabeth and Dean's wedding in Europe. "Both good, solid names. They'll wear well. Your mother would have liked that you named your daughter after her, Emily."

"My father, too," said Emily, from her bed, her eyes sparkling with equal parts happiness and tears. "I wish he could be here to see them, today. If I could bring him back for just one day--today would be it."

"You can call them Doug and Julie, as nicknames," said Aunt Laura, who was holding the sleeping Juliet in her arms. Teddy held Douglas, who was awake and alert, looking everywhere.

"We're not going to give them nicknames, Aunt Laura," he said, staring down at the baby delightedly. "We're going to call them Douglas and Juliet and let them pick up all sorts of outlandish nicknames as they go. Emily, do you remember that Mr. Carpenter called you Jade? I'd almost forgotten it."

"Every nickname I've ever had I've just picked up," said Emily. "Father had so many for me. Dean called me Star--Mr. Carpenter Jade--I've forgotten why--and Aunt Ruth has bestowed on me the lovliest rendition of my name--Em'ly. Out of all that must be my favorite." The group in the bedroom giggled furtively as Aunt Ruth bustled in the kitchen below.

After a while, the aunts departed, Aunt Laura resting Juliet again in Emily's arms. Teddy placed Douglas beside his sister, and he and Emily stared down into the tiny faces.

"Teddy--Teddy," Emily said. "Oh, I just got the eeriest shiver down my spine. It was as if the future stole into the room on tiptoe and whispered a great deal of things in my ear. I saw them grown--he in trousers, she in long dresses--I heard music--laughter. I saw a white girl tiptoeing out to meet her love in the bush over there. I saw them--playing in the graveyard--laughing--loving--living."

Emily's eyes had that faraway look that meant she was seeing her mysterious flash.

Teddy nestled his face against her rapt one, and carefully they kissed, trying not to wake their sleeping children.

"Lucky! Lucky!" Emily said fiercely. "Why, I never understood the word--not really--until now."

* * *

Emily paced the floor in the moonlight--dreaming great dreams as she basked in the silvery glow. In her arms little Douglas quieted a bit. Why did he always wake as soon as she laid down in bed? He slept through thunder, and slamming doors, and dogs barking, but as soon as Emily parted the covers and slipped into the sheets he opened his little eyes and shrieked.

Teddy had spent the entire day sketching the twins. Emily picked up a sheaf of his drawings on the dining table. Already she was familiar with the curve of Juliet's plump cheeks, the shape of Douglas's bewitching eyes. They really were the most beautiful children ever. Both had dark, downy hair--with a bit of a wave, like Teddy's--and Emily's violet-tinged eyes. She studied Douglas's face as he fell into sleep. His little nose really was the last word in noses.

There was a rap on the door--the baby started, but Emily rocked him. She managed to throw on her wrap and open the door stealthily. Who could it be at such an hour?

"I'm sorry," Ilse said, on the doorstep.

She was wearing an old housecoat and a red kerchief on her curls. Emily stared at her and realized that in every fight they'd ever had--and they'd had many--Ilse had never, ever been the one to come to her. She had never been the one to apologize first--no, she never even really apologized. She just let her eyes twinkle a certain way that made those who saw them know it was all as it should be.

"For what?" Emily asked.

"I--don't--know," Ilse said, and shivered. "I don't know what went wrong. Everytime I saw you I felt all fluttery, as if someone was walking over my grave--and I got a queer pain in my chest. I--don't--have it now. Isn't that strange? Emily--I think I was jealous of you."

"Well, that's hardly a new thing," Emily told her. "You were jealous of me all of those years that Perry mooned over me."

"No," said Ilse, pressing together her small red lips. "I think--I hated you, Emily. Oh, it wasn't your fault. I just--envied--you your babies. That's all. But I don't--anymore--I'm just sad. And--I'm glad for you. I don't know where the jealousy went. I'm glad its gone. I don't like hating people, Emily. It makes me feell--all eaten up inside." She wrapped her arms around her thin frame and shivered again.

"Come in," Emily said, opening the door. "I'll make tea with milk and we'll have a moonlit chat. Oh Ilse--" Her free hand moved out to touch the pale cheek. "I've missed you so."

They settled themselves on the old sofa and Ilse parted the blanket to look at the sleeping baby.

"This one must be Juliet," she said. "The lips are too full--the eyelashes too long to be a boy's. Oh, Emily, can I hold her?"

"You may," Emily said. "But this isn't Juliet, it is Douglas."

"Oh!" Ilse laughed, accepting the small bundle. "Wee man, you'll break the hearts of girls the Island over when you're just a tad older." Her tone was laughing but her eyes swam in tears. "I haven't held a baby since--since--"

Emily said, "I know."

"I can still remember everything about her," Ilse said a trifle defiantly. "I remember the weight of her in my arms. Your little man is a bit bigger. But only a bit. Her little hands, her nails, her hair, her browsoh, Emily, everything. Isn't that strange? It was only for a day and so long ago, now."

"You're a mother," Emily said passionately. "You wouldn't be if you didn't remember."

"Oh!" Ilse sounded as if someone had stuck her with something very sharp. "But can I be a mother when my child is dead? Oh, Emily, what if I don't remember her, after a while? What if one day I can't recall the shape of her mouth, or her tiny, wee dimpled knees? I don't want that day to ever come. What if--I don't--recognize her when--I get to heaven?"

"Little Emmy will recognize you," said Emily. "Why she is your guardian angel, Ilse--she is watching you from a dreamy pink cloud in heaven, right now. And you won't forget. You must know--you must--what she would look like today. It will always be like that."

"She'd be a fat, plump, laughing, dimpled baby," Ilse said. "With rumpled golden curls and rougish black eyes, like Perry's. She'd be so pretty! And she'd be a holy terror--we both were--smearing jam on the walls, and getting underfoot. You're right--I won't forget her. But Emily--it just hurts so damned much!"

They sat in silence as the clock struck midnight--the witching hour.

After a while Ilse said, "He's got your pointed ears, " with a smile down at little Douglas, who was sleeping soundly. "He's an elf-baby, isn't he, tell the truth. You found him in the garden one morning as the fairies danced in the dawn."

Emily hadn't realized about the ears. "Juliet has them too, I suppose. Her ears are like his. Poor kidlets, I hope they don't mind them as much as I do."

"Well," Ilse laughed. "You didn't keep your promise--to name your first girl after me! But I wouldn't have expected you too, under the circumstances. What a terrible brat I was! Can you forgive me?"

"Yes--if you forgive me," said Emily. "Oh, Ilse--" she impulsively kissed her cheek. "We're friends again, aren't we?"

"Of course we are!" said Ilse. "Always have been, always will be. In past and future lives. When I was Cleopatra on the Nile, you were my trusty handmaiden. When I was a medieval princess, you were my serf."

"When I was the Chinese empress, you were my handmaid," said Emily, with a grin.

"You parasitic insect!" said Ilse. "I was never a handmaid."

When Teddy awoke, he found them there, their hands entwined and smiles on their faces, even in sleep.