The little girl might have been rather lonesome when Edna was gone, except that there was so very much to do about the cottage on the bluff--and elsewhere. She had always Prince and Nebuchadnezzar to play with; and when she could go down on the shore, there were so many curious things to find and to make playthings of that the child seldom thought about being lonely. She realized that there was something wrong with her friends, "the pale lady" and her husband. It came to the little girl's mind that Baby Laird's father was supposed to have done something very wrong when they were all at home in New York. Her papa had been very angry with him for it and Carolyn wondered if he had "done it again." The baby's mother often talked very seriously with Baby Laird's father. Even Barzilla looked oddly at him. Once Carolyn heard the fisherman say: "Looks to me like 'twas your chance't, Mr. Bassett. Old Man Opportunity, like we was talking about once, is right where you can grab his fetlock." But the young man shook his head silently and his eyes were so grave and sad that, had he not been such a very, very naughty man Carolyn would certainly have tried to comfort him. Even the pale lady seemed to think he was not doing the right thing in refusing to approach the capitalist at the Orowoc House as he had been bidden; so how could Carolyn seek to sympathize with Mr. Joe Bassett? She sat with the pale lady and her baby more than she had before. Was it because the child felt that her hopeful chatter and the radiance of her sunny heart was helpful to her sorrowful friend? Even her mother was often puzzled to know just what went on in Carolyn May's busy brain. These days the little girl did not play "If I Were Rich" in the pale lady's hearing. It seemed to Carolyn May that her friend's heartache and despair was so closely connected with her husband's lack of money that the mere suggestion of her former state of wealth might add to the pale lady's unhappiness. And that she was unhappy none could doubt who saw her. The pallor of her cheek, her feebleness, and her mental as well as physical weariness, were so marked that everybody noticed it. Molly Ball said she never knew an "off" person to come to the island and seem to get so little good of it as Baby Laird's mother. The crew were now recalled to the life saving station, and Captain Ozias Littlefield sent word by one of the surfmen that he was going to be at home at the Portuguese's cabin on a certain day, for he and Oly had a boatload of pollock to split and salt. Carolyn was invited to visit the shack and stay "over chowder time." Barzilla was going down to the cove for a wagon load of shack fish to bury under the seaweed pile for next year's garden fertilizer; and the little girl rode with him behind Beppo, the pony.