There was no sign of any alien presence as she drove up the lane. The cat sat comfortably on the doorstep, a sure sign that there were no strangers about. Sarah stopped thankfully to pat him before she fitted the key into the lock. "You poor Tommy, where would you go if Sarah went away?" Still talking to the cat, she pushed open the door. Then she stood still, as though she were turned to stone. Within, all was confusion. She did not see that it was the sort of confusion which could be created in a few minutes and as quickly straightened out. Immediately in front of the door the old settle had been turned over on its stately back, and the chairs were piled high on the table in a sort of barricade. Sarah's first thought was of thieves. Then she realized that she was looking straight into the barrel of a shot-gun. It made no difference that it was the same broken gun which she had carried upstairs with her the night before, and that she knew it would not shoot. She was terrified at first beyond the power of speech. She leaned, weak and faint, against the door-post, and presently demanded who was there. Two voices answered her. "Hands up!" Then Sarah rushed forward. "Ellen Louisa!" she cried. "Louisa Ellen!" The twins had been carried to Aunt Mena's and put to bed without waking. Then Aunt Mena had sat down before the kitchen fire to explain to her husband why she had brought them home. "Daniel, he says I shall take them. He takes the farm, and he will pay me each week a dollar for Ellie and Weezy. He has to, or I will not keep them. And I get my share of pop's and mom's things what Ellie had, too. They won't do these children no good. But I will not manage Ellie and Weezy like him. He is too cross. I will first tame them. But he is not cross to Albert. Now these twins shall do for a few days what they want. They dare go to school this year and next yet, then they must stop." In the morning Aunt Mena began her process of taming, which would undoubtedly have proved successful with persons more amenable than the twins. In the first place, she let them sleep as long as they liked. When Ellen Louisa woke, she saw by the century-old clock, ticking on the high chest of drawers, that it was seven o'clock. She nudged Louisa Ellen, who scrambled out of bed. "We must hurry or we will be late to--" At that moment Louisa Ellen, instead of rolling out of a low trundle-bed, fell with a loud thump, from the high four-poster. She realized that they were not at home. Then upon them both dawned the recollection of the night before, and the weary days before that. "P-pop, he wouldn't like it that we were here," said Louisa Ellen. "He said we should stay always by Sarah." Ellen Louisa did not answer, but began to put on her shoes and stockings with lightning speed. The twins never wasted many words. As soon as Aunt Mena heard them stirring about, she came to the foot of the steps. "Wee-zy," she called. "El-lie! Breakfast."