to light us in?"

Just then the captain came to find them, and a few minutes later they
walked with him down the gangplank, right into a pair of outstretched
arms. The arms belonged to Madame Dujardin, their new mother. "I should
have known them the moment I looked at them, even if they hadn't been
with the captain," she cried to her husband, who stood smiling by her
side. "Poor darlings, your troubles are all over now! Just as soon as
Captain Nichols says you may, you shall come with us, and oh, I have so
many things to show you in your new home!"

She drew them with her to a quieter part of the dock, while her husband
talked with the captain, and then, when they had bidden him good-bye,
they were bundled into a waiting motor car and whirled away through
miles of brilliantly lighted streets and over a wonderful bridge, and
on and on, until they came to green lawns, and houses set among trees
and shrubs, and it seemed to the children as if they must have reached
the very end of the world. At last the car stopped before a house
standing some distance back from the street in a large yard, and the
children followed their new friends through the bright doorway of their
house.

Madame Dujardin helped them take off their things in the pleasant
hallway, where an open fire was burning, and later, when they were
washed and ready, she led the way to a cheerful dining room, where
there was a pretty table set for four. There were flowers on the table,
and they had chicken for supper, and, after that, ice cream! Jan and
Marie had never tasted ice cream before in their whole lives! They
thought they should like America very much.

After supper their new mother took them upstairs and showed them two
little rooms with a bathroom between. One room was all pink and white
with a dear little white bed in it, and she said to Marie, "This is
your room, my dear." The other room was all in blue and white with
another dear little white bed in it, and she said to Jan, "This is your
room, my dear." And there were clean white night-gowns on the beds, and
little wrappers with gay flowered slippers, just waiting for Jan and
Marie to put them on.

"Oh, I believe it is heaven!" cried Marie, as she looked about the
pretty room. Then she touched Madame Dujardin's sleeve timidly. "Is it
all true?" she said. "Shan't we wake up and have to go somewhere else
pretty soon?"

"No, dear," said Madame Dujardin gently. "You are going to stay right
here n