“Tell me about her,” Laura begged, as, dropping the sides of the tent, Anne began to dress.
“Wait till we are outside—there are too many sharp young ears about us here,” Anne cautioned. “There’ll be time for a walk or a row before breakfast and we can talk then.”
“Good—let’s have a walk,” Laura said, and made quick work of her dressing.
“Now tell me about the Problem,” she urged, when they were seated on a rocky point overlooking the blue waters of the bay.
“Poor Olga,” Anne said. “I wonder sometimes if she has ever had a really happy day in the eighteen years of her life. Her mother was a Russian of good family and well educated. She married an American who made life bitter for her until he drank himself to death. There were three children older than Olga—two sons who went to the bad, following their father’s example. The older girl married a worthless fellow and disappeared, and there was no one left but Olga to support the sick mother and herself, and Olga was only thirteen then! She supported them, somehow, but of course she had to leave her mother alone all day, and one night when she went home she found her gone. She had died all alone.”
“O!” cried Laura.
“Yes, it was pitiful. I suppose the child was as nearly heartbroken as any one could be, for her mother was everything to her. Of course there were many who would have been glad to help had they known, but Olga’s pride is something terrible, and it seems as if she hates everybody because her father and her brothers and sister neglected her mother, and she was left to die alone. I don’t believe there is a single person in the world whom she likes even a little.”
“O, the poor thing!” sighed Laura. “Not even Mrs. Royall?”
“No, not even Mrs. Royall, who has been heavenly kind to her.”
“Is she in your Camp Fire?”