"Indeed," said Mr. Twist.
"Yes," said Anna-Felicitas. "We don't think much of it, but it will tide us over."
"Exactly," said Mr. Twist, still more astonished at this perfect harmony of ideas.
"Tide us over till Mrs. Dellogg is—-" began Anna-Rose in her clear little voice that carried like a flute to all the tables round them.
Mr. Twist got up quickly. "If you've finished let us go out of doors," he said; for he perceived that silence had fallen on the other tables, and attentiveness to what Anna-Rose was going to say next.
"Yes. On the sands," said the twins, getting up too.
On the sands, however, Mr. Twist soon discovered that the harmony of ideas was not as complete as he had supposed; indeed, something very like heated argument began almost as soon as they were seated on some rocks round the corner of the shore to the west of the hotel and they became aware, through conversation, of the vital difference in the two plans.
The Twinkler plan, which they expounded at much length and with a profusion of optimistic detail, was to search for and find a school in the neighbourhood for the daughters of gentlemen, and go to it for three months, or six months, or whatever time Mrs. Dellogg wanted to recover in.
Up to this point the harmony was complete, and Mr. Twist could only nod approval. Beyond it all was confusion, for it appeared that the twins didn't dream of entering a school in any capacity except as teachers. Professors, they said; professors of languages and literatures. They could speak German, as they pointed out, very much better than most people, and had, as Mr. Twist had sometimes himself remarked, an extensive vocabulary in English. They would give lessons in English and German literature. They would be able to teach quite a lot about Heine, for instance, the whole of whose poetry they knew by heart and whose sad life in Paris—
"It's no good running on like that," interrupted Mr. Twist. "You're not old enough."