“Oh but—­oh but—­Co-Columbus—­”

“Yes, yes I know all about Columbus.  Don’t you worry about her.  She’s all right.  She’s all right in the office at this moment, and we’re all right out here if only you knew it, if only you wouldn’t cry such quantities.  It beats me where it all comes from, and you so little—­there, there now—­”

“Oh but—­oh but Columbus—­”

“Yes, yes, I know—­you’re worrying yourself sick because you think you’re responsible for her to your aunt and uncle, but you won’t be, you know, once she’s married—­there, there now—­”

“Oh but—­oh but—­”

“Now don’t—­now please—­yes, yes, I know—­he’s a stranger, and you haven’t seen him yet, but everybody was a stranger once,” said Mr. Twist, quoting Anna-Felicitas’s own argument, the one that had especially irritated him half-an-hour before, “and he’s real good—­I’m sure of it.  And you’ll be sure too the minute you see him.  That’s to say, if you’re able to see anything or anybody for the next week out of your unfortunate stuck-together little eyes.”

“Oh but—­oh but—­you don’t—­you haven’t—­”

“Yes, yes, I have.  Now turn your face so that I can wipe the other side properly.  There now, I caught an enormous tear.  I got him just in time before he trickled into your ear.  Lord, how sore your poor little eyes are.  Don’t it even cheer you to think you’re going to be a sister-in-law, Anna-Rose?”

“Oh but you don’t—­you haven’t—­” she sobbed, her face not a whit less agonized for all his reassurances.

“Well, I know I wish I were going to be a brother-in-law,” said Mr. Twist, worried by his inability to reassure, as he tenderly and carefully dabbed about the corners of her eyes and her soaked eyelashes.  “My, shouldn’t I think well of myself.”

Then his hand shook.

“I wish I were going to be Anna-Felicitas’s brother-in-law,” he said, suddenly impelled, perhaps by this failure to get rid of the misery in her face, to hurl himself on his fate.  “Not yours—­get your mind quite clear about that,—­but Anna-Felicitas’s.”  And his hand shook so much that he had to leave off drying.  For this was a proposal.  If only Anna-Rose would see it, this was a proposal.

Anna-Rose, however, saw nothing.  Even in normal times she wasn’t good at relationships, and had never yet understood the that-man’s-father-was-my-father’s-son one; now she simply didn’t hear.  She was sitting with her hands limply in her lap, and sobbing in a curious sort of anguish.

He couldn’t help being struck by it.  There was more in this than he had grasped.  Again he forgot himself and his proposal.  Again he was overwhelmed by the sole desire to help and comfort.

He put his hand on the two hands lying with such an air of being forgotten on her lap.  “What is it?” he asked gently.  “Little dear one, tell me.  It’s clear I’m not dead on to it yet.”

“Oh—­Columbus—­”