By this time, the servants’ quarters were aroused, and Mrs. Sherman, now really alarmed, called for Walker and Alec to bring lanterns.  The lawn was a wreck, strewn with leaves and fallen limbs and pieces of broken flower urns that had been overturned by the wind.  The searchers stumbled over them as they waded through the wet grass, looking in every nook and corner where it was possible for a child to have strayed, but their search was in vain.  Never a trace did they find of the lost twins.

“Stay in the house, girls,” said Mrs. Sherman, as she caught up the trail of her wrapper, and ran out to follow the flickering lanterns and Mrs. Cassidy’s frantic cries.  “It might give you your death of cold to expose yourselves so soon after the measles.”

As they stood in the door watching the wavering lights, Lloyd exclaimed, “The puppies are gone, too.  I wonder where they can be.  Maybe they were left outside in the storm when we all ran indoors in such a hurry.  Maybe the twins were playing with them.”

She leaned out of the door, peering into the night.  “Heah, Bob!” she called, snapping her fingers, and whistling the shrill signal she always gave when she fed them.  There was no response from the darkness outside, and she turned indoors repeating the whistle, and calling, “Heah, Bob!  Heah, puppy!  Come to yo’ miss!”

In answer there was a stir under the low Persian couch in the library, then a whine, and an inquiring little nose was thrust through the heavy knotted fringe that draped the lower part of the couch.  The next instant Lloyd’s Bob came sprawling joyously toward her, his pink bow cocked rakishly over one ear.  Lloyd dropped on her knees, and, lifting the fringe, looked under.  Then she gave an excited scream.

“Heah they are!” she called.  “I’ve found them!  Heah’s the twins, and all the Bobs!”

“They’re found!” called Joyce, running out on the porch and shouting the news until the searchers farthest from the house heard, and ran joyfully back.  “They’re found!  Lloyd’s found them!”

“Who ever would have thought of squeezing into such a place as that?” said Miss Allison, as she came running in, out of breath.  “I started to look under that couch twice, but it was so low I thought they couldn’t possibly have crawled under.  Besides, some one was sitting on it all evening, and they surely would have been seen if they had attempted it.”

Rob and Malcolm lifted the couch and set it aside, and there, curled up on two fat sofa cushions, with the puppies beside them, lay the twins fast asleep.  Great beads of perspiration stood on their foreheads and trickled down their dimpled faces.  Their hair curled in little wet rings all over their heads, and their chubby arms and necks were red with prickly heat.

“It is a wonder that they weren’t smothered,” cried Mrs. Cassidy, taking them up in her arms and waking them with her tearful kisses.  “Oh, why did you hide away from mother, precious?” she asked, reproachfully, as Bethel’s eyes opened with a dazed stare at the crowd of faces around her.  She leaned her head heavily on her mother’s shoulder, for she was not fully awake, and clung around her neck with both arms.  Finally, in answer to the chorus of questions that came from all sides, she roused enough to answer.