"My children were playing with the twins this evening," she said, "and they have never come home. Of course they may not be your twins; but we hope—"
"Come in, come in," he interrupted, holding the door hospitably open until it had swallowed them all up. "Of course it is my twins. No one else's twins are ever half so troublesome."
And then he sent a great, jovial shout up the stairs,—
"Dot and Dash, you are wanted!"
CHAPTER XI.
Instantly there were a scuffle in the upper passage and a rush of bare feet to the top of the stairs. Mrs. Beauchamp, looking up, saw two slim figures in white, and in another minute she was confronted by two pairs of the very brightest and most daring black eyes she had ever seen.
Without a moment's hesitation Dot hurled herself against the slight figure in the hall, and began a confused, breathless, incoherent statement. "I could not sleep. Neither of we have slept all night. Susie said she knew about the tides; she said she was quite certain"—most familiar words in Mrs. Beauchamp's ears—"that she would get home all right. But Dick had hurt his foot, and we left her on the rocks, sitting quite in a pool. And it has rained so ever since; and perhaps she is on the rocks still, and it is pitchy dark, and both of we feel as if we couldn't bear it."
She paused for breath, but Mrs. Beauchamp's arms tightened round her—always so ready to hold and comfort.
"Thank you," she said, very quietly; "you are giving me great comfort. They would not stay on the rocks, would they?"