Up in Ardmuirland

Val and I, being twins, have always been looked upon as inseparables. True, we have been often forced apart during life's course; yet, somehow, we have always managed to drift back again into the old companionship which Nature seems to have intended in bringing us into the world together. Boyhood and youth, as long as school life lasted, slipped by with never a parting. The crux came when we were old enough to choose our respective paths in life. It appeared that Val, although he had never before breathed a word to me—whatever he may have done to Dad—had thoroughly determined to be a priest if he could. I had never felt the ghost of a vocation in that direction, so here came the parting of the ways. Val went to college, and I was left inconsolable.