So when the car drew up in front of the old barn Mrs. Graham was quite unprepared to have her son get out and open the car door and say, "Mother, this is the place: may I help you out?" She had been talking earnestly, and had thought he was getting out to look after something wrong about the car. Now she looked up startled.
"Why, Sidney! Why, you must have made a mistake! This isn't a house; it is a barn!"
"This is the place, mother. Just come right up this way."
Mrs. Graham picked her way over the short green turf up to the door and stood astonished while her son knocked. What in the world did he mean? Was this one of his jokes? Had he brought her out to see a new riding-horse? That must be it, of course. He was always taking a fancy to a horse or a dog. She really hadn't the time to spare for nonsense this afternoon, but one must humor one's son once in a while. She stepped back absent-mindedly, her eyes resting on the soft greens and purples of the foliage across the meadows, her thoughts on the next paper she intended to write for the club. This incident would soon be over, and then she might pursue the even tenor of her busy way.
Then the door slid back and she became aware of something unusual in the tenseness of the moment. Looking up quickly she saw a beautiful girl of about Elizabeth's age, with a wealth of dark wavy hair, lovely dark eyes, and vivid coloring, and by her side one of the loveliest golden-haired, blue-eyed babies she had ever seen in her life. In the wonder of the moment she forgot that the outside of the building had been a barn, for the curtain had risen on a new setting, and here on the very threshold there opened before her amazed eyes a charming, homelike room.
At first she did not take in any of the details of furnishings. Everything was tastefully arranged, and the dull tones of wall and floor and ceiling in the late afternoon light mellowed the old furniture into its background so perfectly that the imperfections and make-shifts did not appear. It was just a place of comfort and beauty, even though the details might show shabby poverty.
But her son was speaking.
"Mother, this is Miss Carol Hollister, and this little girl is her sister Doris----"
Doris put out a fat hand and gravely laid it in the lady's kid glove, saying carefully, with shy lashes drooped sideways, and blue eyes furtively searching the stranger's face.