“My dear Annie Laurie,” said Mrs. Carson one Friday afternoon not long after this, “will you do Carin and myself the favor of spending the week end with us? I will send for you to-morrow morning, if you will do so, and we’ll have a chance to talk. Whenever we try to talk nowadays, Miss Helena Parkhurst cries out ‘Physiography!’ or ‘Grammar!’ or ‘American History!’ Anyone would think she didn’t want us to become acquainted.”

She shook her finger smilingly at Miss Parkhurst, who was putting the schoolroom in order at the close of five hard days of teaching, and was well pleased at the thought that she could retire to the peace of her own little sitting room and follow her own inclination for a day or two. There were stitches to take and letters to write and thoughts to think, and the young woman who gave so unstintingly of her time and knowledge to three restless girls, sighed with relief at the thought of being her own mistress for a while.

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Carson,” Annie Laurie had answered. “I should love to come. You can’t think what a pleasure it would be. But ought I to leave the aunts? They just sit and watch for me to come home.”

“The aunts shall be bidden to Sunday dinner,” said Mrs. Carson. “We’ll all be gay together.”

She did not say it, but she knew that the flutter of getting ready for such an event as going out to The Shoals to dinner would keep Miss Adnah and Miss Zillah well occupied over Saturday.

“Please come, Annie Laurie,” begged Carin. “I’m getting quite dull, really.”

Annie Laurie turned to laugh at her friend. Quite dull! It seemed impossible that anyone could be dull in the Carson house. Something was nearly always going on. Mrs. Carson would be giving a luncheon to the ladies interested in the Mountain Industries, or Mr. Carson would have gentlemen to dinner—gentlemen who came down from New York or Chicago—or there would be a moonlight picnic, or a riding party, or a musicale, or Mr. and Mrs. Carson would be packing up for one of their sudden journeys. It was the first time that Annie Laurie had been asked to stay overnight at the mansion. She had been Carin’s schoolmate, but hardly more than that, as she understood very well. She had a clear mind, capable of seeing things as they were, and it seemed to her to be a sort of victory that she should, at last, be asked to join them in so intimate and social a manner. It showed her that perhaps she was not so “stiff” after all.

Her thoughts flew to her clothes, as the thoughts of any girl will when bidden for a visit. The wardrobe that used to be so well kept up, in its narrow limits, had grown shabby now. She had been wearing black for her father, and her mourning had consisted of frocks which originally had been colored and which had been dyed. They had not taken the dye very well, and they felt either rough or flimsy to the touch. Annie Laurie would have liked to put charming clothes on that big strong body of hers. Her ideal of beautiful dressing was before her daily, in Mrs. Carson, whose dresses, lovely in color and texture, never seemed to have too much trimming on them, or to do anything but drape and decorate her slender graceful figure. But Annie Laurie had more sense than vanity, and she said to herself that she would not miss such a pleasure and privilege as a two-day visit at The Shoals because of shabby garments.

She sat, however, late that night, pressing her best black frock, and sewing fresh ruchings into it, curling her plume with her sharp little penknife, polishing her boots, putting new bows on her slippers, and running fresh ribbons in her underclothes. She packed her satchel daintily, wrapping up her garments in fresh tissue paper and dropping in a little bag of lavender. Carin should see that she had the tastes of a lady, at least.

There was much to do the next morning, too, for the Pace house was a systematic one, and the Saturday routine must in no way be neglected. But by half-after-ten, Annie Laurie, fresh, and glowing with anticipation, stood with her hat and jacket on waiting for Carin; and not more than a minute behind time, Carin drove up to the door, all in charming spring green, and carrying a bunch of pink tulips in her hands for the aunts.

“We’re to take a little drive the first thing, Annie Laurie,” announced Carin. “The valley is delightful. Everything is bursting into bloom at once. Mother said we must go and look and look and smell and smell till we have soaked in the spring.”

What care-free, happy people the Carsons were, Annie Laurie thought. One had only to be with them a very short time to be convinced that the world was an immensely pleasant place.

So on they went up the sweet valley, over which the mountains hung with a friendly and benevolent air. The Judas trees were in bloom and the orchards budding; on every branch the fresh leaves were starting out, and the crimson maple had flung forth its beautiful foliage. Annie Laurie felt her heart leaping in her, and the black care that had been hanging over her of late lifted like mist before the sun. Looking up, she could see where Azalea’s house was perched fairly upon the edge of the mountain ledge. There it hung, like an eagle’s great nest, daringly near the long slope of old Mount Tennyson.

“Isn’t she a dear—that Azalea girl?” asked Carin enthusiastically. “Never was there such a friend! Why, just having her believe in me the way she does, makes me long to do things. For example, I had known since I was a very, very small girl that I could draw and paint a little, and I was forever asking for a studio. But when mama had given me one, I was so lazy and dreamy that I hardly did anything in it. Then Azalea got after me. She said I was going to be a great painter. She found trees and hills for me to paint. She sat for me herself, patiently, hour after hour, while I made horrible daubs of her. But she kept saying I could do better if I tried, and do you know, by and by I actually did do better. Then papa decided I had a bit of talent, and he arranged with Mr. Bascomb to come up from Rutherford once a week to give me instruction. And by and by when I’m old enough I’m to go back to Chicago to the Art Institute, maybe; or to New York; and afterward if I show I’m worth it, to Paris or Rome.”

“Oh, oh!” sighed Annie Laurie in a sort of rapture. “Paris! Rome! Will you really be able to go to places like that, Carin? But I forget—you already have been to them.”

“Yes, I’ve been,” said Carin. “And you’ll go too, sometime, if you want to badly enough. Of course, it happened to be easy for me. Papa and mama took me, and I didn’t half appreciate it, I was so young and the chance came so easily. But I shall appreciate it next time; and maybe you’ll go with me. Who knows?”

Annie Laurie drew back in her seat with a sort of shudder.

“Oh, Carin,” she said, “I’m afraid things aren’t going to be like that with me. Fine chances aren’t going to come my way. Once I might have thought they would, but now everything is changed. There seems to be so little chance of finding poor dad’s money, and I know so little about earning any. Of course since Sam came, it’s better. The cows are being properly cared for, the milk gets off in time, and the bills are sent out correctly, and all that.”

“Wasn’t it fine of him to come back and work for you like that?”

“Fine? I think it was magnificent. At first, the aunts couldn’t understand it at all. You know I hadn’t told them my suspicions about Mr. Disbrow, and I had begged the neighbors not to do so. The idea hadn’t occurred to them. It was better for them to go on hunting and prying around all their lives than to get to hating some one and feeling revengeful. So they couldn’t see what Sam meant by saying he would come and work for us for nothing. Aunt Adnah never had liked him very well. She called him ‘that Disbrow boy.’ But Mr. Summers and Mr. Carson persuaded her that Sam was going into the dairy business sometime and that he would consider it a privilege to work for us and learn the business, and that contented her. It made her think he was practical and she began to like him better. As for Sam, he works from early morning till late at night, and the place begins to look the way it did when dad was managing it.”

“And does he seem happy—Sam?” asked Carin.

“No—o, I can’t say he does quite. But he’s something better than happy. He goes around with a strange look on his face, as if his own thoughts interested him more than anything else. He’ll hardly talk with me at all. I’d think that he disliked me, only I know better. He’s ashamed for his family and he won’t intrude on me. That’s what he’s thinking. At first I tried to make him feel differently, but then I saw I was bothering him, and so I made up my mind to let him alone. I reckon he knows I’ll never go back on him.”“And he hasn’t an idea where his people are?”

“Not an idea.”

“If they were going West why didn’t they take the train here at Lee? What made them go wandering away in the mountains?”

“Well, I’ve talked with Mr. McBirney about that, and he says Mr. Disbrow was a mountain man born and bred, although he’s been living in town the last few years, and he says no mountain man would go off and leave his chickens and cow and dogs behind him. It wouldn’t so much as occur to him to do it. Then, too, he thinks Mr. Disbrow didn’t dare try to take the train at Lee. If the people had seen him going they would have stopped him. Besides that, I don’t believe Mrs. Disbrow would be willing to go on the train where everybody could see and stare at her. You know she can’t bear to be looked at. I suppose it’s because she’s so like a ghost. Why, her clothes just hang about her like the rags on a scarecrow, and her face is the color of dough and all fallen in. It’s a fact; everyone would turn to look at her. She doesn’t look as if she had lived in the world at all—and she hasn’t for a good many years.”

“Well, how do you account for Sam? How could a boy like that come from such a family?”

“Mr. Summers says that there’s no inheritance for souls—that every soul comes fresh from the hand of God. Sam’s soul is too brave to be overcome by his surroundings. That’s all I can make out of it.”

Carin shook her head doubtfully.

“Well, maybe that’s so. Yet it seems to me there’s more of a mystery to it than that. Your Aunt Adnah may think he’s a ‘Disbrow boy,’ but he certainly doesn’t seem like it to me.”

They were turning in at the gate of The Shoals now, and Annie Laurie looked about her with delight. Gardeners were busy all over the place; fresh awnings of orange and black had been hung from the many windows; yellow tulips appeared in flaming companies along the walks and about the house. Chairs and tables of brown rattan were on the porches; swinging couches heaped with pillows invited one to take one’s ease; books and magazines were placed temptingly at hand. Annie Laurie thought what a contrast all this was to her own meager home, and gave a sharp little sigh. But she was determined to enjoy herself without stint for these two bright days.And this, indeed, was easy to do. Luncheon was served to the girls in Carin’s studio, and there for the greater part of the afternoon the two read, sang and laughed together. Carin had at least three books which Annie Laurie “simply must read”; and Annie Laurie was insistent that Carin should do some painting, “beginning at the very beginning,” and show her how it was done.

“Then I’ll paint you,” declared Carin, and made her friend stand, straight and tall before a draping of red-brown velvet which was just a shade browner than Annie Laurie’s hair.

“But I ought to be a fine artist to do you justice,” Carin protested, “not just a silly niggling beginner. Just you wait, Annie Laurie! Some day you are going to be a beautiful woman, and by that time I hope to know enough to paint you the way you ought to be.”

Then there was a walk in the late afternoon, and tea with Mrs. Kitchell at the Industries, and then the stroll back in the lilac-tinted air, and the fun of dressing together for dinner.

Annie Laurie could hardly make her own toilet for watching Carin, as she came all fresh from her bath, in her dainty garments, and slipped into her simple, exquisite frock of clinging white silk. A maid came to tie her corn-colored scarf, and to wind the broad corn-colored ribbon about her wonderful hair, which was almost the same color, only full of light and shine as no ribbon ever could be. Her slender feet were in white, too, and about her neck was a necklace of clouded amber beads.

“What a love you are,” cried Annie Laurie.

“No more a love than you are yourself,” retorted Carin. “Look!”

She swung her friend around to face the cheval glass, and Annie Laurie saw her own tall, almost haughty, young figure mirrored there, in its plain, well fitting gown of black. She caught a glimpse of her own pretty slippers with their smart bows, of her straight fair neck—Carin had forbidden her to wear her net yoke—and of her red-brown hair wound around and around her head.

“Talk about loves!” said Carin, and led her friend down to the drawing room. There were a number of persons there, it seemed, and Annie Laurie had a confused moment as she was presented to them. She had not been in this room before—at most had glimpsed it from the corridor. Now that she was in it, with the many candles burning in their sconces, the flowers everywhere in vases little and great, with the delicate pinks and yellows of the draperies and furniture making an effect like a wonderful manufactured flower garden all about her, she had a sick feeling of shyness and almost wished that she had not accepted Mrs. Carson’s invitation.

“But that’s being cowardly,” she told herself sharply. “And I’m not afraid of these people, really. They’re all kind and good. What I’m afraid of is merely furniture! Now, who would be afraid of wood and cloth and brass! Silly goose!”

Some one—a pleasant-faced gentleman with white hair—offered his arm to the “silly goose,” and the next moment they were all making their way to the dining room. It was wonderful there, too. The lights seemed to be picked up by the silver and the crystal and to be thrown back in little sparks at Annie Laurie’s dazzled eyes. There was a bright, hurried talking all about her; a talking she could not quite follow. But she had got that new idea in her head, that she was not to be afraid of things like silver and glass and linen, and that certainly no reasonable person could fear kind friends, and so, in a minute or two, her shyness passed, and she was herself again.

There were delicious things passed her to eat, and Annie Laurie wondered what they really could be and why they tasted different from anything she ever had eaten before. The gentleman who had taken her out to dinner was very kind, and talked to her about her lessons, and the early coming of the spring, and how he had not been in those parts previously, and how much he liked it, and how he wished he did not have to go back to Town. By Town, Annie Laurie discovered that he meant New York.

Then, presently, the conversation died down, and everyone seemed to be listening to the lady who sat at Mr. Carson’s right. Her name, it seemed, was Miss Borrow, and she was known, as Mrs. Carson explained, over the mountains as “the doll lady.” She had made a great study of the mountain country, its flowers and trees, its little wild, harmless creatures, furred and feathered, and its lonely, quiet people. Sometimes she traveled for months in a wagon, sleeping in a mountain cabin or in her wagon as the case might be, eating at the simple, hospitable tables of the mountaineers, or cooking by the roadside. And because she was simple and earnest and truly, truly, a friend to all the world, she had been permitted to enter the hearts of the people and they had learned to trust her and to speak out to her almost as freely as they would to one of themselves.

“But please tell us why you are called the ‘doll lady,’ Miss Borrow,” said Carin. “I think I know, but I would so love it if you would explain to Annie Laurie, ma’am.”

“Well,” said Miss Borrow, turning her dark, rather sad eyes upon Annie Laurie, “it was this way. I had not traveled far in the lonely, silent country that lies back among the mountains, before I discovered that the saddest thing about it all was the children—the little children who had nothing to look forward to, and who did not know how to laugh in the happy, free way that children should. They got into bad and silly ways because there was nothing for them to do. So I fell to wondering how I could help them enjoy themselves, and to tell the truth, I hadn’t to wonder very long, for almost immediately it occurred to me that I would give them toys.

“I decided that I would take the boys good knives, so that they could make things, and marbles and balls, so that they might have games; and to the girls I would take dolls. I have gone out from my starting point with hundreds of the dearest, most delightful dollies you could think of, tucked away in my wagon. I have even had to have a second wagon to start with, because of the many things I was carrying along. At first there would be no need to give these things at the houses at which I stayed—the houses nearer the towns. But as I went on and on, over this mountain, and down into that valley and up over the next mountain, I would come on the people who lived in the hollow land.

“They had few friends, or none. They went nowhere. They had nothing to do, except scratch the ground for a little food. One day was like another; and in the faces of the children was a look like that to be seen in the face of a dog—a look of terrible wistfulness, as if there was that in the soul which never could be expressed. To these children I brought my gifts. The boys were glad of the knives and marbles and balls; but nothing like so glad as the girls were of the dolls. Many and many of them never had seen a doll at all. Yet never once did I have to tell them what they were for. They simply reached out their arms and took them, and hugged them up to them—not before people, understand, but as soon as ever they were alone.

“Some of these lonely little girls had hardly known what it was to be kissed, and they would have been ashamed to throw their arms around their mother’s necks and hug and kiss them; but when they got alone with dolly—their own, own dolly—they kissed and hugged it as if they had been starved for want of things like that. Then when I could take along some extra things, so that they could really change the doll’s clothes, and wash and iron for their pets, then, at last, they really had something to do. They seemed to come to life—not the dolls, but the little mothers. Perhaps the dolls did, too. I’m not sure. They were loved enough to make them.”

“Oh, Miss Borrow,” cried Mrs. Carson, “you lucky, lucky woman, to be able to think of such a lovely thing and to carry it out!”

“Lucky is that lucky does,” said the old gentleman beside Annie Laurie, twisting an old saying to suit his purposes.

“Well,” said Carin across the table, under cover of the conversation, “that’s why she’s called the ‘doll lady,’ Annie Laurie. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Beautiful,” replied the other. “And—and why couldn’t we help get some of the dolls ready, Carin? And my aunts—if I could get them to working on those dolls, perhaps they wouldn’t be worrying and wondering so much.”

Mr. Carson overheard her remark, though it was intended only for Carin.

“Excellent and sensible, Annie Laurie,” he said in his light way—that way which meant so much yet seemed to mean so little. “You have said a wise thing. I believe the Misses Pace are to honor us with their presence at dinner to-morrow, are they not, Lucy?”

“Yes,” responded Mrs. Carson, “I am glad to be able to say that they are.”

“We will try then, as you say, my dear Annie Laurie, to help the aunts find a new and interesting occupation. We will give them—some dolls to play with,” smiled Mr. Carson.

For he knew, and Annie Laurie knew, that the poor fretted old ladies needed them as much as any heart-starved mountain child.