on," Aunt Alice had said one afternoon towards the end, when
the twins came in from a walk and found the rector having tea, "says
that you can't be too tactful in America. He's been there."

"Sensitive--sensitive," said Mr. Dodson, shaking his head at his cup.
"Splendidly sensitive, just as they are splendidly whatever else they
are. A great country. Everything on a vast scale, including
sensitiveness. It has to be met vastly. But quite easy really---" He
raised a pedagogic finger at the twins. "You merely add half as much
again to the quantity of your tact as the quantity you encounter of
their sensitiveness, and it's all right."

"Be sure you remember that now," said Aunt Alice, pleased.

As Boston got nearer, Anna-Rose, trying to learn Mr. Dodson's recipe for
social success by heart, became more silent. On the ship, when the
meeting with the Sacks was imminent, she had fled in sudden panic to her
cabin to hide from them. That couldn't have been tact. But it was
instinct. And she was a gentlewoman. Now once again dread took
possession of her and she wanted to hide, not to get there, to stay in
the train and go on and on. She said nothing, of course, of her dread to
Anna-Felicitas in order not to undermine that young person's _morale_,
but she did very much wish that principles weren't such important things
and one needn't have cut oneself off from the protecting figure of Mr.
Twist.

"Now remember what Aunt Alice said," she whispered severely to
Anna-Felicitas, gripping her arm as they stood jammed in the narrow
passage to the door waiting to be let out at Boston.

On the platform, they both thought, would be the Sacks,--certainly one
Sack, and they had feverishly made themselves tidy and composed their
faces into pleasant smiles preparatory to the meeting. But once again no
Sacks were there. The platform emptied itself just as the great hall of
the landing-stage had emptied itself, and nobody came to claim the
Twinklers.

"These Sacks," remarked Anna-Felicitas patiently at last, when it was
finally plain that there weren't any, "don't seem to have acquired the
meeting habit."

"No," said Anna-Rose, vexed but relieved. "They're like what Aunt Alice
used to complain about the housemaids,--neither punctual nor
methodical."

"But it doesn't matter," said Anna-Felicitas. "They shall not escape us.
I'm getting quite hungry for the Sacks as a result of not having them.
We will now proceed to track them to their la