and
tables tumbling over at her approach, to be polite and considerate to
somebody you saw very little of, and even, as she found herself doing,
to get fond of the person; but suppose circumstances threw one again
into the person's continual society, made one again have to sleep in the
same room? Anna-Felicitas doubted whether it would be possible for her
to stand such a test, in spite of her earnest desire to behave; she
doubted, indeed, whether anybody ever did stand that test successfully.
Look at husbands.

Meanwhile there seemed no likelihood of its being applied again. Each of
them had now a separate bedroom, and Mrs. Bilton had, in the lavish
American fashion, her own bathroom, so that even at that point there was
no collision. The twins' rooms were connected by a bathroom all to
themselves, with no other door into it except the doors from their
bedrooms, and Mr. Twist, who dwelt discreetly at the other end of the
house, also had a bathroom of his own. It seemed as natural for American
architects to drop bathrooms about, thought Anna-Rose, as for the little
clouds in the psalms to drop fatness. They shed them just as easily, and
the results were just as refreshing. To persons hailing from Pomerania,
a place arid of bathrooms, it was the last word of luxury and comfort to
have one's own. Their pride in theirs amused Mr. Twist, used from
childhood to these civilized arrangements; but then, as they pointed out
to him, he hadn't lived in Pomerania, where nothing stood between you
and being dirty except the pump.

But it wasn't only the bathrooms that made the inn as planned by Mr.
Twist and the architect seem to the twins the most perfect, the most
wonderful magic little house in the world: the intelligent American
spirit was in every corner, and it was full of clever, simple devices
for saving labour--so full that it almost seemed to the Annas as if it
would get up quite unaided at six every morning and do itself; and they
were sure that if the smallest encouragement were given to the
kitchen-stove it would cook and dish up a dinner all alone. Everything
in the house was on these lines. The arrangements for serving
innumerable teas with ease were admirable. They were marvels of economy
and clever thinking-out. The architect was surprised at the attention
and thought Mr. Twist concentrated on this particular part of the future
housekeeping. "You seem sheer crazy on teas," he remarked; to which Mr.
Twist merely repl