"We would have met him before if we could," said Anna-Felicitas
earnestly.

"I should think so," said Anna-Rose. "It has been the great
retrospective loss of our lives meeting him so late in them."

"Why now," said the old gentleman smiling, "I shouldn't call it so
particularly late in them."

But the knitting lady didn't smile at all, and sat up very straight and
said "H'm, h'm, h'm" to her flashing needles as they flew in and out;
for not only was she in doubt now about the cute little things, but she
also regretted, on behalf of the old gentleman's wife who was a friend
of hers, the alert interest of his manner. He sat there so very much
awake. With his wife he never seemed awake at all. Up to now she had not
seen him except with his wife.

"You mustn't run away with the idea that we're younger than we really
are," Anna-Rose said to the old gentleman.

"Why no, I won't," he answered with a liveliness that deepened the
knitting lady's regret on behalf of his wife. "When I run away you bet
it won't be with an idea."

And he chuckled. He was quite rosy in the face, and chuckled; he whom
she knew only as a quiet man with no chuckle in him. And wasn't what he
had just said very like what the French call a _double entendre?_ She
hadn't a husband herself, but if she had she would wish him to be at
least as quiet when away from her as when with her, and at least as free
from _double entendres_. At least. Really more. "H'm, h'm, h'm," she
said, clicking her needles and looking first at the twins and then at
the old gentleman.

"Do you mean to say you crossed the Atlantic quite alone, you two?" she
asked, in order to prevent his continuing on these remarkable and
unusual lines of _badinage_.

"Quite," said Anna-Felicitas.

"That is to say, we had Mr. Twist of course," said Anna-Rose.

"Once we had got him," amended Anna-Felicitas.

"Yes, yes," said the knitting lady, "so you say. H'm, h'm, h'm. Once you
had got him. I don't quite--"

"Well, I call you a pair of fine high-spirited girls," said the old
gentleman heartily, interrupting in his turn, "and all I can say is I
wish I had been on that boat."

"Here's Mrs. Ridding," said the knitting lady quickly, relief in her
voice; whereupon he suddenly grew quiet. "My, Mrs. Ridding," she added
when the lady drew within speaking distance, "you do look as though you
needed a rest."

Mrs. Ridding, the wife of the old gentleman, Mr. Ridding, had been
approaching sl