Erica crimsoned. So it had come at last, only now she must face both twins instead of just Tommy. She would never hear the end of this rash escapade; she knew that. “Won’t you please tell me about Lis first?” she begged, trying to stave off confession. “No,” Tommy declared, bluntly, “we won’t. This other matter comes first.” His eyes narrowed with a swift suspicion. “Rick, you were never thinking of such a fool trick as trying to stow away on the _Spray_!” he cried, accusingly. Erica sighed resignedly. “Yes, I was, if you must know it,” she assented. “I see now it was a crazy idea, and I vow, Tommy, I never really planned it. I first dreamed I was doing it, and I woke up and—and all at once there was the plan in my head, and the next thing I knew I _was_ doing it——” Mrs. Haven, full of curiosity and interest, had drawn nearer, and now her eyes widened and her mouth fell slightly open in her astonishment as the supposed red-headed boy she had intended taking under her wing on the voyage to China burst half coherently into the utterly dumfounding narrative of the past events of the morning hours. “So—so you’re a _girl_!” she ejaculated. “Mercy on us! Whatever is the world coming to when nice, well-brought-up girls cut off their hair, put on boy’s clothes, and run away to sea! I think it was very naughty and deceitful of you to take me in so,” she concluded, indignantly. “What would your family have thought of me, when they found it out?” But that was more than Lis’s soft heart could bear, directed at Erica. It was all well enough for Tommy and himself to scold and tease her when they saw fit, but no outsider and stranger could call Ricky deceitful while either Tommy or he stood by. Ricky’d been silly again—she was always getting into trouble by following her impulses too blindly—but she’d never told a lie or been intentionally deceitful in her life. This, stammering a little in his earnestness, he endeavored to make clear to the chagrined Mrs. Haven, and at last, by convincing her that Erica’s story was entirely correct as far as it went and that he himself was the lost cousin, just returned from China safe and sound, he made her forget entirely her disapproval in a quick and generous delight at this happy ending of the tale. “I won’t say another word,” she promised, “if you’ll let me hear how you got lost and then came to be found again. Haven’t we time before going on board?” She appealed wistfully to Tommy, who nodded assent. “Well,” Lis began, “it’s really all due to Ricky, here, that they found out who I was, in the end. Yes”—he turned to Erica, whose face was glowing—”it was that seal ring of Sun Li’s you hung round my neck before I sailed. Remember? And by the way,” he added, explanatorily, “Sun Li’s not his real name at all. I suppose Captain Bartlet has told you he’s governor of Canton?” Erica and Tommy both nodded, and Lis resumed his story.