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.

It was all very well, so long as they were far away from America and
never quite sure that a submarine mightn't settle their future for them
once and for all, to feel big, vague, heroic things about a new life and
a new world and they two Twinklers going to conquer it; but when the new
world was really upon them, and the new life, with all the multitudinous
details that would have to be tackled, going to begin in a few hours,
their hearts became uneasy and sank within them. England hadn't liked
them. Suppose America didn't like them either? Uncle Arthur hadn't liked
them. Suppose Uncle Arthur's friends didn't like them either? Their
hearts sank to, and remained in, their boots.

Round Anna-Rose's waist, safely concealed beneath her skirt from what
Anna-Felicitas called the predatory instincts of their fellow-passengers,
was a chamois-leather bag containing their passports, a letter to the
bank where their L200 was, a letter to those friends of Uncle Arthur's
who were to be tried first, a letter to those other friends of his who
were to be the second line of defence supposing the first one failed,
and ten pounds in two L5 notes.

Uncle Arthur, grievously grumbling, and having previously used in bed
most of those vulgar words that made Aunt Alice so miserable, had given
Anna-Rose one of the L5 notes for the extra expenses of the journey
till, in New York, she should be able to draw on the L200, though what
expenses there could be for a couple of girls whose