Tears of humiliation and disappointment blurred the blue eyes abruptly, so for a moment she could not see what was making Mrs. Haven, beside her, exclaim again in an astonished voice. “La! my dear! and mercy me! Which on earth is which?” the plump good-natured widow was gasping excitedly. “Look, boy! Did you ever see two such peas in a pod before?” Erica shook two big tears off her lashes impatiently, and looked inquiringly ahead of her as she was bid. Then every bit of color went out of her face. She took an unsteady step forward, staring wildly at the two tall, long-legged youths in seafaring clothes who were striding jauntily down the wharf toward Mrs. Haven’s carriage, their arms flung across each other’s shoulders, their brisk feet keeping step. Incredulously Erica continued to stare, wordlessly, as they came nearer; came as she had so often watched them cross the garden to Aunt Charity’s gate or come charging up Orange Street joyously, arms across each other’s shoulders as now, gay feet keeping step to some old familiar march whistled in an undertone; two young faces, flung back cockily, fresh and untroubled as the morning, and so exactly alike that at a distance even Erica herself sometimes couldn’t tell—Lis and Tommy! _Lis_—alive, safe, well—arm in arm with Tommy swinging up the Boston wharf here before her unbelieving eyes in the mellowing dawn of that April morning. No wonder Erica, panting, a little dizzy between incredulity and sudden joy, dropped cap and bundle and, wrenching her arm from Mrs. Haven’s grasp, went running to meet the approaching pair as if she had suddenly donned the famous seven-leagued boots of the old fairy stories. The astonished Mrs. Haven beheld the three figures—the two young sailors and her slim little red-headed _protegé_—meet like a whirling sandstorm, swing madly about in a circle, arms linked, feet executing a war-dance of fantastic steps, while three voices—two deep boyish ones and a surprisingly shrill treble—rose in a regular pæan of jubilee. The deep voices cried, “Ricky!” in varying tones of joyous amazement, and the shrill little treble soared above them both, with “Lis! Lis! It’s _Lis_!” Then the whirling circle broke, and the three, their hands still clasped, stood back and surveyed one another with a dozen eager questions plainly burning the tips of their eager tongues. “Lis, how did you get here?” Erica begged, earnestly. “Surely Tommy didn’t know yesterday——” “Of course I didn’t,” Tommy broke in, quickly. “You can’t imagine I wouldn’t have told mother if I had known.” He broke off in his turn, and the twins stared hard at their strangely metamorphosed young cousin. Lis’s eyes were curious and a trifle amused, but Tommy’s mouth set in a new grim line. “Rick,” the latter said with abruptness, “what are you doing down here at this hour, in those old clothes of mine?”