They writhed and struggled in their efforts to stop, to pretend they weren’t crying, that it was really nothing but just tears,—­odd ones left over from last time, which was years and years ago,—­“But really years and years ago,” sobbed Anna-Rose, anxiously explaining,—­“the years one falls down on garden paths in, and cuts one’s knees, and one’s mother—­one’s mother—­c-c-c-comforts one—­”

“See here,” said Mr. Twist, interrupting these incoherences, and pulling out a beautiful clean pocket-handkerchief which hadn’t even been unfolded yet, “you’ve got to tell me all about it right away.”

And he shook out the handkerchief, and with the first-aid promptness his Red Cross experience had taught him, started competently wiping up their faces.

CHAPTER VII

There was that about Mr. Twist which, once one had begun them, encouraged confidences; something kind about his eyes, something not too determined about his chin.  He bore no resemblance to those pictures of efficient Americans in advertisements with which Europe is familiar,—­eagle-faced gentlemen with intimidatingly firm mouths and chins, wiry creatures, physically and mentally perfect, offering in capital letters to make you Just Like Them.  Mr. Twist was the reverse of eagle-faced.  He was also the reverse of good-looking; that is, he would have been very handsome indeed, as Anna-Rose remarked several days later to Anna-Felicitas, when the friendship had become a settled thing,—­which indeed it did as soon as Mr. Twist had finished wiping their eyes and noses that first afternoon, it being impossible, they discovered, to have one’s eyes and noses wiped by somebody without being friends afterwards (for such an activity, said Anna-Felicitas, belonged to the same order of events as rescue from fire, lions, or drowning, after which in books you married him; but this having only been wiping, said Anna-Rose, the case was adequately met by friendship)—­he would have been very handsome indeed if he hadn’t had a face.

“But you have to have a face,” said Anna-Felicitas, who didn’t think it much mattered what sort it was so long as you could eat with it and see out of it.

“And as long as one is as kind as Mr. Twist,” said Anna-Rose; but secretly she thought that having been begun so successfully at his feet, and carried upwards with such grace of long limbs and happy proportions, he might as well have gone on equally felicitously for the last little bit.

“I expect God got tired of him over that last bit,” she mused, “and just put on any sort of head.”

“Yes—­that happened to be lying about,” agreed Anna-Felicitas.  “In a hurry to get done with him.”

“Anyway he’s very kind,” said Anna-Rose, a slight touch of defiance in her voice.

“Oh, very kind,” agreed Anna-Felicitas.

“And it doesn’t matter about faces for being kind,” said Anna-Rose.