“Let me show them, mother!” cried Carin, and she ran forward to a piece of the high paneling which was not occupied by book shelves, and pushed a little spring, and whish! back into the casement flew the door. “Look up! Look!” said Carin, dancing about in her delight. Azalea ran forward and looked up the dark narrow stairs. “Who do you see coming down?” asked Mrs. Carson. “A tall old man, with stooped shoulders and a dreadful frown,” said Azalea. At that, Jim looked up. “Why, Zalie,” he said, “I don’t see anyone!” Azalea was going to laugh, but she saw that Carin and Mrs. Carson didn’t laugh. “It’s only our nonsense, Jim,” the lady said smilingly. “There isn’t one of course.” She looked at her two visitors for a moment. Jim was inquisitive. He wanted to know all there was to know. He was out gunning, so to speak, for facts. Azalea was wandering along hoping to meet with fancies. She was the one with the imagination. “I don’t know which I like best,” thought Mrs. Carson. “But I’m sure they make a good team.” Aloud she said: “What do you think of lunch in the garden? Everyone in the house save us is as busy as busy as can be. Shall we get our own lunch?” So, hardly believing that it could all be true, Jim and his sister went with Mrs. Carson and Carin into the great cool pantry and helped spread the thin slices of bread, and to cut the cheese and dish the honey and slice the cold chicken. And then they sat where the cucumber oleanders shed their fragrance, and the sound of the fountain whispered in their ears, and ate and talked and laughed together. Afterward they explored the garden and the barn—at least the children did—and then the hour came for the McBirneys to go. “Could I see your mother?” asked Azalea. “Do you think she’s resting?” “I’ll go see,” Carin said. Mrs. Carson came back with her and smiled upon the children. “Happy days, happy days!” she sighed. “It’s nice to be as young as you are.” “We certainly have been happy, ma’am,” Azalea said. “You’ve been so good to us, and we’re just strangers. I don’t see how you could be so good when you didn’t know us or anything.” “My dear,” said the lady, “A few years ago something happened to me which made me decide to be happy whenever I had the chance, and to make other people happy in the same way. I saw you and wanted to know you. Carin wanted to know you. You wished to see our home. It was the kind of a home you would have picked out for your own if you could. It was the merest accident that I had it and you didn’t. Very well, I’ve shared it with you. See? Come again, come again! We keep open doors at The Shoals.”