part of the couch. The next instant
Lloyd's Bob came sprawling joyously toward her, his pink bow cocked
rakishly over one ear. Lloyd dropped on her knees, and, lifting the
fringe, looked under. Then she gave an excited scream.

"Heah they are!" she called. "I've found them! Heah's the twins, and all
the Bobs!"

"They're found!" called Joyce, running out on the porch and shouting the
news until the searchers farthest from the house heard, and ran joyfully
back. "They're found! Lloyd's found them!"

"Who ever would have thought of squeezing into such a place as that?"
said Miss Allison, as she came running in, out of breath. "I started to
look under that couch twice, but it was so low I thought they couldn't
possibly have crawled under. Besides, some one was sitting on it all
evening, and they surely would have been seen if they had attempted it."

Rob and Malcolm lifted the couch and set it aside, and there, curled up
on two fat sofa cushions, with the puppies beside them, lay the twins
fast asleep. Great beads of perspiration stood on their foreheads and
trickled down their dimpled faces. Their hair curled in little wet
rings all over their heads, and their chubby arms and necks were red
with prickly heat.

"It is a wonder that they weren't smothered," cried Mrs. Cassidy, taking
them up in her arms and waking them with her tearful kisses. "Oh, _why_
did you hide away from mother, precious?" she asked, reproachfully, as
Bethel's eyes opened with a dazed stare at the crowd of faces around
her. She leaned her head heavily on her mother's shoulder, for she was
not fully awake, and clung around her neck with both arms. Finally, in
answer to the chorus of questions that came from all sides, she roused
enough to answer.

"It lightened, that's why we hid. Mammy Chloe thed if you go get in a
dark plathe on a pile of featheths, no lightnin' can hurt you. Mammy
Chloe always puth uth in the middle of her feather-bed. Tho me and
thithter took a thofa pillow and got under the thofa and shut our eyeth
tight. We wath hot," she added, gravely, "and tho wath the puppieth, but
the lightnin' couldn't get uth."

The laugh that went up from the amused listeners aroused both the twins
so thoroughly that they joined in without knowing what they were
laughing about. Then Alec and Walker carried them triumphantly on their
shoulders to the wagonette, and once more the party started homeward.
This time they moved off without singing, but