they saw their first Pacific sunset.  It happened to be even in that land of wonderful sunsets an unusually wonderful one, and none of the three had ever seen anything in the least like it.  They could but sit silent and stare.  The great sea, that little line of lovely islands flung down on it like a chain of amethysts, that vast flame of sky, that heaving water passionately reflecting it, and on the other side, through the other windows, a sharp wall of black mountains,—­it was fantastically beautiful, like something in a poem or a dream.

By the time they got to Acapulco it was dark.  Night followed upon the sunset with a suddenness that astonished the twins, used to the leisurely methods of twilight on the Baltic; and the only light in the country outside the town as they got near it was the light from myriads of great stars.

No Delloggs were at the station, but the twins were used now to not being met and had not particularly expected them; besides, Mr. Twist was with them this time, and he would see that if the Delloggs didn’t come to them they would get safely to the Delloggs.

The usual telegram had been sent announcing their arrival, and the taxi-driver, who seemed to know the Dellogg house well when Mr. Twist told him where they wanted to go, apparently also thought it natural they should want to go exactly there.  In him, indeed, there did seem to be a trace of expecting them,—­almost as if he had been told to look out for them; for hardly had Mr. Twist begun to give him the address than glancing at the twins he said, “I guess you’re wanting Mrs. Dellogg”; and got down and actually opened the door for them, an attention so unusual in the taxi-drivers the twins had up to then met in America that they were more than ever convinced that nothing in the way of unfriendliness or unkindness could stand up against sun and oranges.

“Relations?” he asked them through the window as he shut the door gently and carefully, while Mr. Twist went with a porter to see about the luggage.

“I beg your pardon?” said Anna-Rose.

“Relations of Delloggses?”

“No,” said Anna-Rose.  “Friends.”

“At least,” amended Anna-Felicitas, “practically.”

“Ah,” said the driver, leaning with both his arms on the window-sill in the friendliest possible manner, and chewing gum and eyeing them with thoughtful interest.

Then he said, after a pause during which his jaw rolled regularly from side to side and the twins watched the rolling with an interest equal to his interest in them, “From Los Angeles?”

“No,” said Anna-Rose.  “From New York.”

“At least,” amended Anna-Felicitas, “practically.”

“Well I call that a real compliment,” said the driver slowly and deliberately because of his jaw going on rolling.  “To come all that way, and without being relations—­I call that a real compliment, and a friendship that’s worth something.  Anybody can come along from Los Angeles, but it takes a real friend to come from New York,” and he eyed them now with admiration.