When they reached the highway they held a short consultation, and it was agreed the cyclists should lead home. As they were about to start Anne cried, “Look!” and waved her handkerchief toward the rising ground around which the lane had curved. There, upon the stubbly hillside, with her crutch before her and Laddie by her side, sat Mrs. Carr, watching them on their way, her witchlike hood pointing toward the sky, but a weary sort of smile upon her wan face, while behind her, against the distant horizon, was the dead tree still in front of them.
“I wish you would have that old tree cut down, Mr. Hugh,” laughed Anne over her shoulder, as she shot ahead; “it’s in the middle of everywhere, and like Robin Hood’s barn, you go round and round it, but you never get there.”
Mr. Hugh and his companion drove along for a while in silence, then Miss Letty, forgetting herself, said half aloud, “I wonder what led you into that lane?”
“Geese,” said Mr. Hugh, at which astonishing remark they both laughed, and the ice began to melt as he explained it by saying that as he was hurrying along the highway, a flock of geese suddenly waddled across the road a few feet ahead with much hissing and flapping of wings, whereat Artful, his horse, being full of good spirits and oats, shied to the right, and made a bolt down the lane, which his driver had not even noticed. Being once there he recognized it as the north boundary of his new land, forgot that it did not run from road to road, remembered the old house which he thought empty, and took the stray chance of the girls having taken a short cut. “All of which proves that accidents are sometimes lucky things,” he added.
“I wish my accident might bring some luck to Mrs. Carr,” said Miss Letty, simply, and then she told the story of the afternoon, her musical voice giving it pathos, and as she wholly forgot herself, a little foreign accent crept in her speech that made it more appealing.
“I certainly won’t turn her out, I give you my word for that,” said Mr. Hugh, earnestly, “I’ve tried time and again to see her. How can we handle her? Her pride and the old tea caddy will not feed and clothe her, and the house is only fit for bats.” Mr. Hugh had a warm heart, but he was very practical.
“I could manage the clothes, I think,” said Miss Letty, shyly. “I’ve got plenty of pocket money, for there is nothing to buy about here; the bonbons are atrocious—all made of glue. I could ask her to make me jam in exchange. You see she makes four kinds from wild fruit, and I adore jam.” In some things Letty was younger than Anne.
“But when you have finished your visit and gone back to France, what about her clothes then?” persisted Mr. Hugh, not realizing that he was teasing her.
“I forgot,” was all she said, but her head drooped, for Miss Letty was warm-hearted, but not altogether practical; but few people are at eighteen.