From the first, Anne was a puzzle to the sober-minded lady.  A few days after Anne entered the home, she was sent into the office to be reproved.  Slim and erect in her short blue frock, she stood before the superintendent.  Miss Farlow looked at the slip of paper from the pupil teacher:  “Anne Lewis; disorderly; laughed aloud in the Sunday study class.”

“Why did you laugh during the Bible lesson, Anne Lewis?” asked Miss Farlow.  She always called each girl by her full name.  “You knew that it was naughty, did you not?”

“I did not mean to be naughty,” said Anne, penitently.  “I just laughed at myself.”

“Laughed at yourself?” Miss Farlow was puzzled.

“I was thinking,” Anne explained.  “My eyes were half-shut and—­it was the way the light was shining—­I could see us all from our chins down in the shiny desk.  Then I thought, suppose all the mirrors in the world were broken so we could never see our faces!  We’d never know whether we were ourselves or one of the other girls—­we’re so exactly alike, you know.  And I thought how funny it would be not to know whether you were yourself or some one else, and maybe comb some one else’s hair when you meant to get the tangles out of your own—­and I laughed out loud.”

Miss Farlow did not smile.  “What a queer, foolish thing that was for you to think!” she said.  “I will not punish you this time, since you did not mean to be naughty.  But if you do such a thing again, I must take away your Saturday afternoon holiday.”

That would be a severe punishment, for the girls dearly loved the freedom of the long Saturday afternoons.  From early dinner until teatime, they amused themselves as they pleased, indoors or on the ‘Home’ grounds, under the general oversight of a pupil-teacher.

CHAPTER XIV

One Saturday afternoon in July, while the other girls were playing and chattering on a shady porch, Anne slipped with Honey-Sweet through a hole in the hedge and sauntered toward an old brown-stone house set in spacious grounds near the ‘Home.’  Anne had long been wanting to explore the place.  She had never seen any one there—­the house was closed for the summer—­and in her stories it figured as an enchanted castle.  As she walked ankle-deep in the unclipped grass under the catalpa and elm-trees, she looked around with eager interest.

She liked everything about the place, even the clump of great rough dock which had grown up around the back door.  A frog hopped under the broad leaves as she passed.  She almost expected to see it come forth changed to a fairy.  Of course she didn’t believe in fairies now, but this looked like a place where they would stay if there were any.

At last she wandered toward a great clump of boxwood near a side gate.  It made such a mass of greenery that Anne pulled aside a branch to see if it were green inside too.  She gave a gasp of delight.  The tall, close-growing stems were thickly leaved on the outside and bare within; in the centre there was a hollow space, like a little room.  There must be fairies, after all, to make such a beautiful place as this.