lco,--having been seen
at different periods going over the Old Mission in tow of a monk who
wouldn't look at them but kept his eyes carefully fixed on the ground,
sitting on high stools eating strange and enchanting ices at the shop in
the town that has the best ices, bathing deliciously in the warm sea at
the foot of a cliff along the top of which a great hedge of
rose-coloured geraniums flared against the sky, lunching under a grove
of ilexes on the contents of a basket produced by Mr. Twist from
somewhere in the car he had hired, wandering afterwards up through
eucalyptus woods across the fields towards the foot of the
mountains,--they came about five o'clock, thirsty and thinking of tea,
to a delightful group of flowery cottages clustering round a restaurant
and forming collectively, as Mr. Twist explained, one of the many
American forms of hotel. "To which," he said, "people not living in the
cottages can come and have meals at the restaurant, so we'll go right in
and have tea."

And it was just because they couldn't get tea--any other meal, the
proprietress said, but no teas were served, owing to the Domestic Help
Eight Hours Bill which obliged her to do without domestics during the
afternoon hours--that Anna-Felicitas came by her great idea.

CHAPTER XXI

But she didn't come by it at once.

They got into the car first, which was waiting for them in the scented
road at the bottom of the field they had walked across, and they got
into it in silence and were driven back to their hotel for tea, and her
brain was still unvisited by inspiration.

They were all tired and thirsty, and were disappointed at being thwarted
in their desire to sit at a little green table under whispering trees
and rest, and drink tea, and had no sort of wish to have it at the
Cosmopolitan. But both Mr. Twist, who had been corrupted by Europe, and
the twins, who had the habits of their mother, couldn't imagine doing
without it in the afternoon, and they would have it in the hotel sooner
than not have it at all. It was brought to them after a long time of
waiting. Nobody else was having any at that hour, and the waiter, when
at last one was found, had difficulty apparently in believing that they
were serious. When at last he did bring it, it was toast and marmalade
and table-napkins, for all the world as though it had been breakfast.

Then it was that, contemplating this with discomfort and distaste, as
well as the place they wer