Prince suddenly bounded away, barking, down a pleasant glade, through the bottom of which flowed a brook. Carolyn May caught a glimpse of something brown moving down there, and she called shrilly to the dog to come back.
“But that’s somebody, Uncle Joe” Carolyn May said with assurance, as the dog slowly returned. “Prince never barks like that, unless it’s a person. And I saw something move.”
“Somebody taking a walk, like us. Couldn’t be a deer,” said Mr. Stagg.
“Oh,” cried Carolyn May a moment later, “I see it again. That’s a skirt I see. Why, it’s a lady!”
Mr. Stagg suddenly grew very stern-looking, as well as silent. All the beauty of the day and of the glade they had entered seemed lost on him. He went on stubbornly, yet as though loath to proceed.
“Why,” murmured Carolyn May, “it’s Miss Amanda Parlow! That’s just who it is!”
The carpenter’s daughter was sitting on a bare brown log by the brook. She was dressed very prettily, all in brown. Carolyn May had seen her that day in church in this same pretty dress.
For some weeks Miss Amanda had been away “on a case.” Carolyn May knew that she was a trained nurse and was often away from home weeks at a time. Mr. Parlow had told her about it.
The little girl wanted to speak to the pretty Miss Amanda, but she looked again into Uncle Joe’s countenance and did not dare.