When she turned around she could see a lovely little old village ahead of her.  It nestled at the foot of a mountain, and it had vine-covered cottages with thatched roofs, and spreading trees that made a velvety shade underneath and winked in the sunshine above.  The air was full of the prettiest sounds; and Sara, listening, thought they must come from the mountain.  The mountain itself looked like Fairyland; it was covered with ferns and blossoming laurel and festoons of jessamine; and the sounds that seemed forever playing and skipping about from wall to wall and rock to rock were like the echoes (or was it the reflection?) of happy bells.  Sara thought she ought to know what they were, but she could not quite make out.

“Why, that’s where Laughter lives, my dear,” said the Teacup when she asked her.  “That’s where your own little Laugh was making off to, the day you caught him.  Listen—­there are some as little as he was.”

And indeed Sara could distinguish many sorts—­small, gurgly Baby-Laughs, dimpled Little-Girl Laughs, Chuckles like Jimmy’s, soft Laughs like Mother’s, and—­almost the pleasantest of all,—­deep, delighted Father-Laughs that almost made her homesick.  They seemed to be having such a very good time up there that she would have liked to listen to them forever; besides, she kept thinking she might catch sight of one.  But, though she several times saw the vines swaying, or something flashing behind a laurel-bush, she was obliged to go on without really seeing any.

At the shady door of almost every cottage a pleasant Smile in a very white, old-fashioned kerchief and cap sat spinning at a queer sort of wheel; and the Teacup explained to Sara that this was where the dimples were made.

“It’s the chief occupation of the women,” said the Teacup.  “The thread they use is something like spun-glass, and this is the only place in the world where the secret of making it is known.  They weave it into this fabric that looks something like cloth, and then cut it into the different shapes with their scissors.  You see now why dimples are so fragile.”

The Smiles all spoke to them with pleasant looks, and gladly stopped their work to talk to Sara, as she stood admiringly beside their wheels.  She saw a good many gentleman Smiles going happily about their work—­drawing water, watering the flowers, or (since it was getting late) milking the little buttercup-colored cows.  Here and there, too, a happy Smile, too little to go with the other children, rolled about and gurgled at its Mother’s feet like a Cupid escaped from a Valentine.

All this time Sara had been struggling with a plan that had been shaping itself in her mind as she looked at basket after basket full of shimmering, shining dimples, sitting beside the spinning wheels.  After trying to start several times, she finally managed to ask of one of the pleasantest Smiles,

“Do you—­do you sell them?”

“Well, we don’t usually sell them here,” she answered doubtfully.  “We ship them, you see, to the Stork.  He takes our entire output.  But, if you like, I could let you have a dozen for a kiss or two.”