Mrs. Twist, however, had headed the young man off.  Edith was too necessary to her at that time.  She could not possibly lose Edith.  And besides, the only way to avoid being a widow is not to marry.  She told herself that she could not bear the thought of poor Edith’s running the risk of an affliction similar to her own.  If one hasn’t a husband one cannot lose him, Mrs. Twist clearly saw.  If Edith married she would certainly lose him unless he lost her.  Marriage had only two solutions, she explained to her silent daughter,—­she would not, of course, discuss with her that third one which America has so often flown to for solace and relief,—­only two, said Mrs. Twist, and they were that either one died oneself, which wasn’t exactly a happy thing, or the other one did.  It was only a question of time before one of the married was left alone to mourn.  Marriage began rosily no doubt, but it always ended black.  “And think of my having to see you like this” she said, with a gesture indicating her sad dress.

Edith was intimidated; and the young man presently went away whistling.  He was the only one.  Mrs. Twist had no more trouble.  He passed entirely from her mind; and as she looked at Edith dressed for going to meet Edward in the clothes she went to church in on Sundays, she unconsciously felt a faint contempt for a woman who had had so much time to get married in and yet had never achieved it.  She herself had been married at twenty; and her hair even now, after all she had gone through, was hardly more gray than Edith’s.

“Your hat’s crooked,” she said, when Edith straightened herself after bending down to kiss her good-bye; and then, after all unable to bear the idea of being left alone while Edith, with that pleased face, went off to New York to see Edward before she did, she asked her, if she still had a minute to spare, to help her to the sofa, because she felt faint.

“I expect the excitement has been too much for me,” she murmured, lying down and shutting her eyes; and Edith, disciplined in affection and attentiveness, immediately took off her hat and settled down to getting her mother well again in time for Edward.

Which is why nobody met Mr. Twist on his arrival in New York, and he accordingly did things, as will be seen, which he mightn’t otherwise have done.

CHAPTER IX

When the St. Luke was so near its journey’s end that people were packing up, and the word Nantucket was frequent in the scraps of talk the twins heard, they woke up from the unworried condition of mind Mr. Twist’s kindness and the dreamy monotony of the days had produced in them, and began to consider their prospects with more attention.  This attention soon resulted in anxiety.  Anna-Rose showed hers by being irritable.  Anna-Felicitas didn’t show hers at all.