"After all, it _is_ what you do when you go to heaven," she said as she opened the door, unable to resist, according to her custom, having the last word. "But Prussia?" they still cried, still button-holing her, as it were, from afar. "Then--you were born in Prussia?" "Yes, but we couldn't help it," said Anna-Rose; and shut the door quickly behind her. CHAPTER VIII Mr. Twist, who was never able to be anything but kind--he had the most amiable mouth and chin in the world, and his name was Edward--took a lively interest in the plans and probable future of the two Annas. He also took a lively and solicitous interest in their present, and a profoundly sympathetic one in their past. In fact, their three tenses interested him to the exclusion of almost everything else, and his chief desire was to see them safely through any shoals there might be waiting them in the shape of Uncle Arthur's friends--he distrusted Uncle Arthur, and therefore his friends--into the safe and pleasant waters of real American hospitality and kindliness. He knew that such waters abounded for those who could find the tap. He reminded himself of that which he had been taught since childhood, of the mighty heart of America which, once touched, would take persons like the twins right in and never let them out again. But it had to be touched. It had, as it were, to be put in connection with them by means of advertisement. America, he reflected, was a little deaf. She had to be shouted to. But once she heard, once she thoroughly grasped ... He cogitated much in his cabin--one with a private bathroom, for Mr. Twist had what Aunt Alice called ample means--on these two defenceless children. If they had been Belgians now, or Serbians, or any persons plainly in need of relief! As it was, America would be likely, he feared, to consider that either Germany or England ought to be looking after them, and might conceivably remain chilly and uninterested. Uncle Arthur, it appeared, hadn't many friends in America, and those he had didn't like him. At least that was what Mr. Twist gathered from the conversation of Anna-Rose. She didn't positively assert but she very candidly conjectured, and Mr. Twist could quite believe that Uncle Arthur's friends wouldn't be warm ones. Their hospitality he could imagine fleeting and perfunctory. They would pass on the Twinklers as soon as possible, as indeed why should they not? And presently some dreary small job would be found for them, some job as pupil-teacher or girls' companion in the sterile atmosphere of a young ladies' school.