course--a
public benefactor--"

"Yes, _isn't_ he," said Anna-Rose radiantly.

"A boon to the breakfast-table--"

"Yes, _isn't_ he," said Anna-Rose again, all asparkle. "He _is_ so
pleasant at breakfast."

"Then he--Mr. Twist--Teapot Twist we call him where I live--"

"Teapot Twist?" said Anna-Rose. "I think that's irreverent."

"Not at all. It's a pet name. A sign of our affection and gratitude.
Then he isn't your uncle?"

"We haven't got a real uncle nearer than heaven," said Anna-Felicitas,
her cheek on her hand, dreamily reconstructing the image of Onkel Col.

"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "Indeed." And he ruminated, on this
too, his thirsty heart--he had a thirsty heart, and found difficulty in
slaking it because of his wife--very indulgent toward the twins.

Then he said: "That's a long way off."

"What is?" asked Anna-Rose.

"The place your uncle's in."

"Not too far really," said Anna-Felicitas softly. "He's safe there. He
was very old, and was difficult to look after. Why, he got there at last
through his own carelessness."

"Indeed," said the old gentleman.

"Sheer carelessness," said Anna-Rose.

"Indeed," said the old gentleman. "How was that?"

"Well, you see where we lived they didn't have electric light," began
Anna-Rose, "and one night--the the night he went to heaven--he put the
petroleum lamp--"

And she was about to relate that dreadful story of Onkle Col's end
which has already been described in these pages as unfit for anywhere
but an appendix for time had blunted her feelings, when Anna-Felicitas
put out a beseeching hand and stopped her. Even after all these years
Anna-Felicitas couldn't bear to remember Onkle Col's end. It had haunted
her childhood. It had licked about her dreams in leaping tongues of
flame. And it wasn't only tongues of flame. There were circumstances
connected with it.... Only quite recently, since the war had damped down
lesser horrors, had she got rid of it. She could at least now talk of
him calmly, and also speculate with pleasure on the probable aspect of
Onkle Col in glory, but she still couldn't bear to hear the details of
his end.

At this point an elderly lady of the spare and active type, very upright
and much wrinkled, that America seems so freely to produce, came down
the stairs; and seeing the twins talking to the old gentleman, crossed
straight over and sat down briskly next to them smiling benevolently.

"Well, if Mr. Ridding can talk