“Why, I took that,” said Anne, delighted; “and I’ve done a lot more pictures of the kennels beside.”
“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Miss Jule. “Take all the Dogtown pictures you can, no larger than this, mind, and we’ll make them into albums and give them to Mrs. Carr to sell, together with the knick-knacks she makes, up at Robin Hood’s Inn to help along her fund, and I’ll pay for the materials.”
“It will be great fun,” agreed Anne; “but what is her fund for? I haven’t heard of it.”
Miss Jule waited for Mr. Hugh to speak; but he turned his back and stared out of the window, so she answered: “Mrs. Carr wants to have a little money every year to help what she calls ‘some decent puir bodies,’ who have dogs that they love, and can feed, but for whom the license money is a stumbling-block.
“You all know how near she came to losing Laddie, her collie; and really might have if Letty’s bicycle hadn’t providentially broken down, Anne lost her way in the back field, and the barbed wire fence been where it was. So Mr. Hugh lets her sell little things she knits to the picnic people who go to the Inn for tea, and he will see that she only pays for worthy dogs.”
Mr. Hugh expected to hear Miss Letty’s ringing laugh, but he didn’t.
“Oh, I hope I shall be able to make a great many albums,” said Anne, stretching wide her arms to express size, as she used to, when, as a little girl, she opened her arms to the sky and said she wished she could hug all outdoors.
“I’m sorry Lily’s dead. I’d have let you take her and me together, and you could have charged a lot,” said Tommy, innocently; and then added at random, in the polite silence that followed, “Say, Miss Letty, if you loved anything, would you care if it looked ugly or like a jumping-jack in a picture?”
“Why, of course not,” said Miss Letty, innocently, not looking in Mr. Hugh’s direction, which was well, as she might have guessed, for he was as red as a beet, being the only one who understood at what Tommy was driving.
Miss Jule, scenting something, suggested that they go out and present the pups with the collars that Mr. Hugh had bought for them but had seemingly forgotten. This pulled him together again, and he handed Anne a parcel containing six dainty chamois-lined collars. Three were red for the girls, and three blue for the boys, and each was ornamented with a pair of small round nickel bells.