"Hello, everybody, are you dry yet?" called a cheerful voice.
"Carita!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "We thought you were your mother."
Carita looked down at her loosely fitting garment and laughed. "I had to wear this while my dress dried. Knight said I ought to hang out a sign—'room to let.' Mother made me wear the sunbonnet because my hair is still wet. But I said I could dry it by your fire as well as anywhere else." She tossed away the cavernous bonnet and the chestnut locks fell in a cloud about her shoulders. With her dark eyes and skin framed by the long straight hair she looked like a young Indian.
"Have a potato?" asked Blue Bonnet, spearing one with a stick and presenting it to the guest.
"Thank you." Carita took it as if this were the usual fashion of serving this vegetable, and ate it with the ease born of long experience. Suddenly she gave an exclamation. "Oh, I nearly forgot. Alec sent over something. The boys couldn't come for they've nothing to wear but blankets—they're rolled up like a lot of mummies around the fire. But Alec and Knight and Sandy have been writing something,—I think it's a letter."
"It's a poem!—oh, Blue Bonnet, you read it aloud." Kitty handed over the verses and in the flickering light they gathered close about Blue Bonnet as she read:
"Who did it?" cried Blue Bonnet.
"All three helped," said Carita. "But I think Sandy did most."
"He must be cleverer than he looks," said Blue Bonnet.