re
Anna-Felicitas. Of the two, she was supposed to be the least bad at
sums. Their mother had put it that way, refusing to say, as Anna-Rose
industriously tried to trap her into saying, that she was the better of
the two. But even so, the difference entitled her to authority on the
subject with Anna-Felicitas, and by dint of doing all her calculations
roughly, as she was careful to describe her method, she allowed room for
withdrawal and escape where otherwise the inflexibility of figures might
have caught her tight and held her down while Anna-Felicitas looked on
and was unable to respect her.
Evidently the exchange was something beneficent. She decided to rejoice
in it in silence, accept whatever it did, and refrain from asking
questions.
"So I did. Of course. The exchange," she said, after a little.
She gathered up the dollar bills and began packing them into her bag.
They wouldn't all go in, and she had to put the rest into her pocket,
for which also there were too many; but she refused Anna-Felicitas's
offer to put some of them in hers on the ground that sooner or later she
would be sure to forget they weren't her handkerchief and would blow her
nose with them.
"Thank you very much for being so kind," she said to Mr. Twist, as she
stuffed her pocket full and tried by vigorous patting to get it to look
inconspicuous. "We're never going to forget you, Anna-F. and me. We'll
write to you often, and we'll come and see you as often as you like."
"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas dreamily, as she watched the shore of Long
Island sliding past. "Of course you've got your relations, but relations
soon pall, and you may be quite glad after a while of a little fresh
blood."
Mr. Twist thought this very likely, and agreed with several other things
Anna-Felicitas, generalizing from Uncle Arthur, said about relations,
again with that air of addressing nobody specially and meaning nothing
in particular, while Anna-Rose wrestled with the obesity of her pocket.
"Whether you come to see me or not," said Mr. Twist, whose misgivings as
to the effect of the Twinklers on his mother grew rather than subsided,
"I shall certainly come to see you."
"Perhaps Mr. Sack won't allow followers," said Anna-Felicitas, her eyes
far away. "Uncle Arthur didn't. He wouldn't let the maids have any, so
they had to go out and do the following themselves. We had a follower
once, didn't we, Anna-R.?" she continued her voice pensive and
reminiscent.
|