--the will of--Providence--that the children should not come home."

The old man stood still again, and raised his cap from a silvery head.

"There's One above as won't let him go too far," he said. "We have our
orders, which is enough for me. Carry on."

And really faith or fortune did seem to befriend Mrs. Beauchamp at last.
It was just after they had knocked at the second closed door, and had
received a very short negative to their inquiry, which the maidservant
evidently considered to be an ill-timed joke, that a door on the opposite
side of the road opened suddenly, and a great stream of light flashed
out.

There were some confused farewells, a gathering up of skirts, and
laughter; and in a minute the Royal Navy was standing at the salute
before the master of the house.

"The lady and I are looking for some twins, sir."

Instead of the ready "No" they half expected, the man paused, and smiled
whimsically.

"Well, what have the little beggars been doing now?" he said.

Never had any words sounded quite so sweet to Mrs. Beauchamp. She too
came into the circle of light, and lifted her sweet, tired, beseeching
face.

"My children were playing with the twins this evening," she said, "and
they have never come home. Of course they may not be _your_ twins; but we
hope--"

"Come in, come in," he interrupted, holding the door hospitably open
until it had swallowed them all up. "Of course it is my twins. No one
else's twins are ever half so troublesome."

And then he sent a great, jovial shout up the stairs,--

"Dot and Dash, you are wanted!"

CHAPTER XI.

Instantly there were a scuffle in the upper passage and a rush of bare
feet to the top of the stairs. Mrs. Beauchamp, looking up, saw two slim
figures in white, and in another minute she was confronted by two pairs
of the very brightest and most daring black eyes she had ever seen.

Without a moment's hesitation Dot hurled herself against the slight
figure in the hall, and began a confused, breathless, incoherent
statement. "I could not sleep. Neither of we have slept all night. Susie
said she knew about the tides; she said she was quite certain"--most
familiar words in Mrs. Beauchamp's ears--"that she would get home all
right. But Dick had hurt his foot, and we left her on the rocks, sitting
quite in a pool. And it has rained so ever since; and perhaps she is on
the rocks still, and it is pitchy dark, and both of we feel as if we
couldn't bear it