e night before, their grape-fruit in
little beds of ice on their plates and every sort of American dish
ordered, from griddle cakes and molasses to chicken pie, a page came in
with loud cries for Mr. Twist, which made him instantly conspicuous--a
thing he particularly disliked--and handed him a letter.

The twins had gone.

CHAPTER XIII

They had left early that morning for Boston, determined, as they wrote,
no longer to trespass on his kindness. There had been a discussion in
their bedroom the night before when they got back in which Anna-Rose
supplied the heat and Anna-Felicitas the arguments, and it ended in
Anna-Felicitas succeeding in restoring Anna-Rose to her original
standpoint of proud independence, from which, lured by the comfort and
security of Mr. Twist's companionship, she had been inclined to slip.

It took some time, because of Anna-Rose being the eldest. Anna-Felicitas
had had to be as wary, and gentle, and persistently affectionate as a
wife whom necessity compels to try and get reason into her husband.
Anna-Rose's feathers, even as the feathers of a husband, bristled at the
mere breath of criticism of her superior intelligence and wisdom. She
was the leader of the party, the head and guide, the one who had the
dollars in her pocket, and being the eldest naturally must know best.
Besides, she was secretly nervous about taking Anna-Felicitas about
alone. She too had observed the stares of the public, and had never
supposed that any of them might be for her. How was she to get to Boston
successfully with so enchanting a creature, through all the
complications of travel in an unknown country, without the support and
counsel of Mr. Twist? Just the dollars and quarters and dimes and cents
cowed her. The strangeness of everything, while it delighted her so
long as she could peep at it from behind Mr. Twist, appalled her the
minute she was left alone with it. America seemed altogether a foreign
country, a strange place whose inhabitants by accident didn't talk in a
strange language. They talked English; or rather what sounded like
English till you found that it wasn't really.

But Anna-Felicitas prevailed. She had all Anna-Rose's inborn horror of
accepting money or other benefits from people who had no natural right
to exercise their benevolences upon her, to appeal to. Christopher,
after long wrestling restored at last to pride, did sit down and write
the letter that so much spoilt Mr. Twist's b