Highacres

opened on a clearing where roses and hollyhocks, phlox, sweet-william, petunias and great purple-hearted asters bloomed in riotous confusion along

t!" called Jerry

iry-haired terrier, tumbling over one another in their eagerness to reach their mistress; at t

unniness on her lips; her hair, like Jerry's, looked as though it had been burnished by the sun

that really said: "This is the wisest, kindes

was an unusual woman; in the graciousness of her greeting there was no embarrassment. Only once, when John Westley introduced h

at his plight; he must not dream of attempting to return to Wayside until he had rested--he must spend the night at Sunnyside and then in t

s side of the mountain," she said, smi

a mile shorter than going by the road), that he forgot completely the alarm that must be upsetting the entire management of the Wayside Hotel over the disappearance of a distinguished guest. Indeed, at the very moment that he stepped across the threshold into the sunlit living room of the Travis cottage, a worried

o. The beams of the low ceiling and the woodwork of the walls had been stained a mellow brown. There was a piney smell everywhere, as though the fragrant odors of the mountainside had crept into and clung to the little house. A great fireplace crow

. Travis brought to him a glass of home-made wine. He drank it grat

at Kettle Mountain is inhabited by fai

Pepperpot held high in her arms and Bigboy leaping at her side. They rudely disturbed the Maltese--D

ed as can be because I ran away without them," she explained to John Westley

'm glad, too, very g

you're here. Anyway, he'll want me to put up Silverheel

lothes, country-cut, hung loosely on his spare frame, his hair fringed over his collar in an untidy way, yet there was a kindliness, a gentleness in

st, was a woman educated beyond the ordinary, yet nothing in their simple, pleasant conversation could let anyone think that they had not both been born and brought up right there on Kettle. Everything about the house had the mark of a cultured taste, yet the cushioned chairs, the rugs, the soft-toned hangings were worn to shabbiness. And most mystifying of all was M

was because he had admitted to Jerry that he, too, found something in Kettle that approached the magic--that he had stood on the Wishing-rock and had wished, very seriously, and if Mrs. Travis had known what that wish was her regret would, indeed, have been real alarm! After Jerry, with

ere were lots of things in her h

the world reckons it, but the doctor and I love books and

u have

gh there was a wistful look in her eyes

." John Westley blushed under the embarrassment o

is so deep that she cannot go over the trail I have taught her at home. You see I

ered Jerry chattering about some Ro

problem that has come to Sunnyside for--a very long time. Life has always been so simple here. We have all we can want to eat and the doctor's practice, tho

and around--to the other side of the mountain." He nodded now as though he understood exactly what Mrs. Travis meant

-oh, the world's such a big, hard place--there's so much cruelty and selfishness in it, so much unhappiness!

il all about herself, that life, sometime and somewhere aw

over the side of Kettle; she can call the birds and wild squirrels to her as though she was a little wild creature herself. She takes care of her own little garden. And I do everything with her. Yet she is always talking as though some day she'd run away! Of course I know she wouldn't do exact

nted in books about this reaching out of youth that he might repeat now, if he knew it all, to the little mo

-Mr. and Mrs. Will Allan. I met her at church. She's--well, I knew in an ins

ome from my town." He sprang to his feet in delight. "I never dreamed I was anywhere near them! I'll