looked serious when she heard this. "I hope not!" was all she
said, and from then on she watched Ann with brooding eyes; she urged
Lynda to keep her much out of doors in the companionship of Bobbie and
Billy who were normal to a relieving extent. Ann played and enjoyed the
babies--she adored Billy and permitted him to rule over her with no
light hand--but when she could, she read poetry and talked of strange,
imaginative things with the few girls in whose presence she became rapt
and reverent.

Brace was the only one who took Ann as a joke.

"She's working out her fool ideas, young," he comforted; "let her alone.
A boy would go behind some barn and smoke and revel in the idea that he
was a devil of a fellow. Annie"--he, alone, called her that--"Annie is
smoking her tobacco behind her little barns. She'll get good and sick of
it. Let her learn her lesson."

"That's right," Betty admitted, "girls ought to learn, just as boys
do--but if I ever find _Bobbie_ smoking--"

"What will you do to him, Betty?"

"Well, I'm not sure, but I _do_ know I'd insist upon his coming from
behind barns."

And that led them all to consider Ann from the barn standpoint. If she
wanted the tragic and sombre she should have it--in the sunlight and
surrounded with love. So she no longer was obliged to depend on the
queer little girls who fluttered like blind bats in the crude of their
adolescent years. Lynda, Betty, Truedale, and Brace read bloodcurdling
horrors to her and took her to plays--the best. And they wedged in a
deal of wholesome, commonplace fun that presently awoke a response and
developed a sense of humour that gave them all a belief that the worst
was past.

"She has forgotten everything that lies back of her sickness," Lynda
once said to Betty; "it's strange, but she appears to have begun from
that."

Then Betty made a remark that Lynda recalled afterward:

"I don't believe she has, Lyn. I'm not worried about Ann as you and Con
are. Her Lady Macbeth pose is just plain girl; but she has depths we
have never sounded. Sometimes I think she hides them to prove her
gratitude and affection, and because she is so helpless. She was nearly
five when she came to you, Lyn, and I believe she does remember the
hills and her mother!"

"Why, Betty, what makes you think this?" Lynda was appalled.

"It is her eyes. There are moments when she is looking back--far back.
She is trying to hold to something that is escaping her. Love her, L