“Can’t you by any chance produce a mother?” she asked.

Mr. Sack stared at her.

“Of course we’re very sorry,” said Anna-Rose.

Mr. Sack stared at her.

“But you understand, I’m sure, that under the circumstances—­”

“Do you say,” said Mr. Sack, stopping still after a few more turns in front of Anna-Rose, and making a great effort to collect his thoughts, “that I—­that we—­had arranged to look after you?”

“Arranged with Uncle Arthur,” said Anna-Rose.  “Uncle Arthur Abinger.  Of course you had.  That’s why we’re here.  Why, you wrote bidding us welcome.  He showed us the letter.”

“Abinger.  Abinger.  Oh—­that man,” said Mr. Sack, his mind clearing.

“We thought you’d probably feel like that about him,” said Anna-Felicitas sympathetically.

“Why, then,” said Mr. Sack, his mind getting suddenly quite clear, “you must be—­why, you are the Twinklers.”

“We’ve been drawing your attention to that at frequent intervals since we got here,” said Anna-Felicitas.

“But whether you now remember or still don’t realize,” said Anna-Rose with great firmness, “I’m afraid we’ve got to say good-bye.”

“That’s all very well, Anna-R.,” again protested Anna-Felicitas, “but where are we to go to?”

“Go?” said Anna-Rose with a dignity very creditable in one of her size, “Ultimately to California, of course, to Uncle Arthur’s other friends.  But now, this afternoon, we get back into a train and go to Clark, to Mr. Twist.  He at least has a mother.”

CHAPTER XV

And so it came about that just as the reunited Twists, mother, son and daughter, were sitting in the drawing-room, a little tired after a long afternoon of affection, waiting for seven o’clock to strike and, with the striking, Amanda the head maid to appear and announce supper, but waiting with lassitude, for they had not yet recovered from an elaborate welcoming dinner, the Twinklers, in the lovely twilight of a golden day, were hastening up the winding road from the station towards them.  Silent, and a little exhausted, the unconscious Twists sat in their drawing-room, a place of marble and antimacassars, while these light figures, their shoes white with the dust of a country-side that had had no rain for weeks, sped every moment nearer.

The road wound gently upwards through fields and woods, through quiet, delicious evening country, and there was one little star twinkling encouragingly at the twins from over where they supposed Clark would be.  At the station there had been neither porter nor conveyance, nor indeed anybody or anything at all except themselves, their luggage, and a thin, kind man who represented authority.  Clark is two miles away from its station, and all the way to it is uninhabited.  Just at the station are a cluster of those hasty buildings America flings down in out-of-the-way places till she shall have leisure to make a splendid city; but the road immediately curved away from these up into solitude and the evening sky.