In the end, the sole resemblance the cottage had to an English inn was the signboard out in the road. With the best will in the world, and the liveliest financial encouragement from Mr. Twist, the architect couldn't in three weeks turn a wooden Californian cottage into an ancient red-brick Elizabethan pothouse. He got a thatched roof on to it by a miracle of hustle, but the wooden walls remained; he also found a real antique heavy oak front door studded with big rusty nailheads in a San Francisco curiosity shop, that would serve, he said, as a basis for any wished-for hark-back later on when there was more time to the old girl's epoch--thus did he refer to Great Eliza and her spacious days--and meanwhile it gave the building, he alleged, a considerable air; but as this door in that fine climate was hooked open all day long it didn't disturb the gay, the almost jocose appearance of the place when everything was finished. Houses have their expressions, their distinctive faces, very much as people have, meditated Mr. Twist the morning of the opening, as he sat astride a green chair at the bottom of the little garden, where a hedge of sweetbriar beautifully separated the Twinkler domain from the rolling fields that lay between it and the Pacific, and stared at his handiwork; and the conclusion was forced upon him--reluctantly, for it was the last thing he had wanted The Open Arms to do--that the thing looked as if it were winking at him. Positively, thought Mr. Twist, his hat on the back of his head, staring, that was what it seemed to be doing. How was that? He studied it profoundly, his head on one side. Was it that it was so very gay? He hadn't meant it to be gay like that. He had intended a restrained and disciplined simplicity, a Puritan unpretentiousness, with those sweet maidens, the Twinkler twins, flitting like modest doves in and out among its tea-tables; but one small thing had been added to another small thing at their suggestion, each small thing taken separately apparently not mattering at all and here it was almost--he hoped it was only his imagination--winking at him. It looked a familiar little house; jocular; very open indeed about the arms. CHAPTER XXIII Various things had happened, however, before this morning of the great day was reached, and Mr. Twist had had some harassing experiences. One of the first things he had done after the visit to Los Angeles was to take steps in the matter of the guardianship. He had written to Mrs. Bilton that he was the Miss Twinklers' guardian, though it was not at that moment true. It was clear, he thought, that it should be made true as quickly as possible, and he therefore sought out a lawyer in Acapulco the morning after the interview. This was not the same lawyer who did his estate business for him; Mr. Twist thought it best to have a separate one for more personal affairs.