Mr. Summers had to admit that it was. His little wife, Barbara, who wanted terribly to go with the girls but who was unwilling to leave her preacher-man, had to admit it also, though she usually was the first to think of the answer to any puzzle. Finally, Mr. Carson put it this way: “McBirney and his wife are willing Azalea should go, providing the proper protectress is found. Mrs. Carson and I feel the same way. Now, Summers, I ask you, isn’t it up to the girls to find the right chaperon? Why not leave it in their hands? Let them produce a woman of good sense, refinement, courage, love of adventure mixed with judgment, well-educated, accustomed to killing snakes, friendly to the mountain people, with a religious nature and a perfect disposition—no objection to a little knowledge of medicine thrown in—and they can go.” The Rev. Absalom threw back his head and laughed, and his laugh was entirely out of proportion to the size of the little house in which he and his wife and his yellow-headed son lived and had their being, and in which they were now entertaining their friends the Carsons and the McBirneys. But Carin and Azalea arose to the situation. “It’s an hour before father and mother are to start up the mountain for home,” said Azalea, taking the dare gayly; “so we’ve time to go out and look around.” “Why not?” demanded Carin. “I’m great at finding four-leaf clovers. Why shouldn’t I find the perfect chaperon?” Half in expectation, half in despair, the two of them ran off down the sunny street, followed by the applause of Barbara Summers’ small brown hands. “First,” said Carin, when they were beyond the hearing of their elders, “let’s go tell Annie Laurie.” “Of course,” agreed Azalea. “Even if she doesn’t know of the right person, she must be told what we’re doing.” It was not far from the Summers’ home to the rather gaunt house which Annie Laurie Pace had inherited. The girls made their way between the well-kept fields in which the fodder was raised for Annie Laurie’s fine herd of cattle—the celebrated Pace herd, which provided milk for half the county—and so came by carefully tended roads to their friend’s home. Annie Laurie had been training vines to grow over the austere house, and had made flower gardens in the yard which until recently had worn a forbidding and business-like appearance. There was even an arbor about which clematis and wisteria were beginning to climb, and here, sparsely sheltered by shade, sat Miss Zillah Pace, the younger and gentler of Annie Laurie’s two aunts. There was a wistful look on her face and her hands lay idly in her lap, but when she saw the two girls she got to her feet and came swiftly forward to meet them. “Oh,” she cried, “how very nice to see you on such a beautiful day! Everyone ought to be young to-day, oughtn’t they? I declare, I don’t see how I’m ever going to give up and be middle-aged if it means sitting around here at home season in and season out.”