The Carroll Girls

by Mabel Quiller-Couch

But no cottage was to be found next door or in Dorsham. There were not very many all told, and those there were were always full, so that if one family wanted to change they had to wait until another was in the same mind, and then just walk in to each other's houses. But up at Four Winds there was a square, sturdy cottage built expressly, one would think, to defy those winds that blew over the village. It was the only one, but all the four girls agreed that it would be just the very thing. It had a sitting-room and kitchen and scullery and three bedrooms, tiny rooms all of them, but to the children it was one of the most fascinating little places ever built; and when stocked with the simple furniture Miss Charlotte had had instructions to purchase it really did look a dear, cosy little house.

And such it seemed to the weary travellers when they arrived, the father tired, disappointed with his last attempt, and bowed under a burden of care, but so glad to see his children again that nothing else seemed to matter. Such it seemed, too, to the mother, so disgusted with the roughness and want of comforts in the life she had been leading lately that everything seemed luxurious and replete with comfort.

Cousin Charlotte and the girls had certainly done their best to make the place look homelike, and Anna had helped to clean it from top to bottom, to lay carpets, hang curtains, and polish everything that could be polished, so that it really was in a perfect state of order and cleanliness.

It was in the spring that the travellers finally reached Four Winds, just when the brooks were beginning to run with a cheerful note, and the scent of wet moss and primroses to fill the air.

As they drove from the station on the memorable day of their arrival Mr. Carroll drew in the sweet fresh breeze as though it were the breath of life to him, and almost shouted with pleasure at the sight of the catkins on the nut-bushes, and the 'goslings' on the willows, and the yellowhammers and thrushes hopping in the hedges.

They got down for a moment at Moor Cottage to see the children's home, and be introduced to Anna and Guard.

"You noble old fellow, you saved my girls' lives," said Mr. Carroll, patting the dear old dog's rough head; and Guard wagged his tail and looked as pleased as though he quite understood.

Then Mrs. Carroll and Miss Ashe mounted the quaint old carriage again, and drove slowly on with the luggage, while Mr. Carroll and his girls, and, of course, Guard, walked on behind. The elder girls were a little shy and constrained just at first, perhaps, and Angela was silent with happiness. If she talked much she should weep, she felt; but she showed her father her hens and hen-house before they started on again. "And in time I shall have a whole farm, father," she said seriously, "and then I want you to come to live with me on it, and we will have all kinds of animals."

"A capital idea," said Mr. Carroll gravely, without a trace of a smile as he looked at the very modest beginning so much was to spring from.

But, if the others were silent Poppy, when once her tongue was loosened, made up for it, and she trotted along by her father's side, holding his hand, and chattering to him as freely as though he had never been away.