“What is?” asked Anna-Rose.

“The place your uncle’s in.”

“Not too far really,” said Anna-Felicitas softly.  “He’s safe there.  He was very old, and was difficult to look after.  Why, he got there at last through his own carelessness.”

“Indeed,” said the old gentleman.

“Sheer carelessness,” said Anna-Rose.

“Indeed,” said the old gentleman.  “How was that?”

“Well, you see where we lived they didn’t have electric light,” began Anna-Rose, “and one night—­the the night he went to heaven—­he put the petroleum lamp—­”

And she was about to relate that dreadful story of Onkle Col’s end which has already been described in these pages as unfit for anywhere but an appendix for time had blunted her feelings, when Anna-Felicitas put out a beseeching hand and stopped her.  Even after all these years Anna-Felicitas couldn’t bear to remember Onkle Col’s end.  It had haunted her childhood.  It had licked about her dreams in leaping tongues of flame.  And it wasn’t only tongues of flame.  There were circumstances connected with it....  Only quite recently, since the war had damped down lesser horrors, had she got rid of it.  She could at least now talk of him calmly, and also speculate with pleasure on the probable aspect of Onkle Col in glory, but she still couldn’t bear to hear the details of his end.

At this point an elderly lady of the spare and active type, very upright and much wrinkled, that America seems so freely to produce, came down the stairs; and seeing the twins talking to the old gentleman, crossed straight over and sat down briskly next to them smiling benevolently.

“Well, if Mr. Ridding can talk to you I guess so can I,” she said, pulling her knitting out of a brocaded bag and nodding and smiling at the group.

She was knitting socks for the Allied armies in France the next winter, but it being warm just then in California they were cotton socks because wool made her hands too hot.

The twins were all polite, reciprocal smiles.

“I’m just crazy to hear about you,” said the brisk lady, knitting with incredible energy, while her smiles flicked over everybody.  “You’re fresh from Europe, aren’t you?  What say?  Quite fresh?  My, aren’t you cute little things.  Thinking of making a long stay in the States?  What say?  For the rest of your lives?  Why now, I call that just splendid.  Parents coming out West soon too?  What say?  Prevented?  Well, I guess they won’t let themselves be prevented long.  Mr. Twist looking after you meanwhile?  What say?  There isn’t any meanwhile?  Well, I don’t quite—­Mr. Twist your uncle, or cousin?  What say?  No relation at all?  H’m, h’m.  No relation at all, is he.  Well, I guess he’s an old friend of your parents, then.  What say?  They didn’t know him?  H’m, h’m.  They didn’t know him, didn’t they.  Well, I don’t quite—­What say?  But you know him?  Yes, yes, so I see.  H’m, h’m.  I don’t quite—­” Her needles flew in and out, and her ball of cotton rolled on to the floor in her surprise.