“I’m to go with you and the young ladies to the photographer’s. Miss Natalie arranged it with her mother that we might have a while too long, so we could go to the photographer’s unsuspected by Mrs. Cortlandt. Then you and I are goin’ huntin’ for guests, Miss Beth. Mrs. Cortlandt said I might take you to the children’s homes, if I was sure there’d be no diseases for you to catch,” said Anna Mary. “I had chicken pox--twice, Anna Mary, and whooping-cough and measles when I was small, and last year I was a sight with mumps, so there can’t be much for me to take. I’ll be ready in half an hour--you said, half an hour, Anna Mary?” asked Beth. “Half an hour, Miss Beth, if you please. And Miss Natalie said she had picked out what you were to be photographed in; Frieda laid out some frocks for her to choose between, and I have the one in the case our young ladies are takin’. It’s a fine white one, Miss Beth, quite simple, and most suited to you. Miss Natalie has wonderful taste for so young a girl,” added Anna Mary, seeing the question in Beth’s eyes. Beth found the photographer’s another item in her list of “things that were different.” At home one climbed two steep flights of stairs to get to the photographer’s studio and after this breath-taking feat, one found it a small room, stuffy with mixed odors of chemicals, littered with photographs on sundry tables standing about and with dismaying groups and single enlargements, framed in dark mouldings, standing against the walls. Here one arose in an elevator to enter a still and tasteful reception room, white with the light of the top floor of a large building, and was shown into a dressing room, quietly sumptuous, where a maid was in attendance, in case the visitor had not brought her own maid to make her ready for the great business of a portrait. Anna Mary being in attendance upon the three young girls, the “stationary maid,” as Natalie called her, was not required. Anna Mary laid out the three white frocks in which the girls were to be photographed and then dressed them. She shook out Natalie’s abundant hair, her glorious hair, so dark, yet full of warmth, full also of bends and turns and wilfulness. She brought Alys’s pale hair forward where it would show to the best advantage, and brushed Beth’s fine masses of shining gold into a mist that was hard to curb. Then they were ready and went out to take their places before the camera. Here two surprises awaited Beth. One was Dirk who, having steadfastly refused to be one of the party, had altered his mind at the last moment and now appeared in his finest attire, grinning sheepishly.