poil the
effect."

"That would be a signal for Mrs. Royall to 'discover' them and send them
back to bed," Anne returned. "So long as they do it in utter silence so
as to disturb no one else, the Guardians wink at it. It is pretty, isn't
it?"

"Lovely!"

Anne turned over and went to sleep again, but Laura watched the slender
graceful figures in their loose white garments till suddenly they melted
into the shadows and were gone. Then she too slept till a shaft of
sunlight, touching her eyelids, awakened her to a new day. She looked
across at her friend, who smiled back at her. "I feel so well and so
happy!" she exclaimed.

"It is sleeping in the open air," Anne replied. "Almost everybody wakes
happy here--except the Problem."

"The Problem?" Laura echoed.

"I mean Olga Priest, the girl you asked about last night. We Guardians
call her the Problem because no one has yet been able to do anything for
her."

"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 neglecte