la takin' her picter, Oi'm
thinkin'. 'Twas there she said she'd be goin' afther she came out of the
pot-closet--saints have mercy! Could she _git_ out at all, at all?" and
Mary tore down the stairs, with Mrs. Rockwood and Helen close at her
heels. She reached the closet, flung open the door, and beheld a
spectacle. Seated on the floor, in the midst of a scattered array of pots,
kettles and frying-pans, her box of plates upset, her precious camera in
her lap, and blissfully unconscious that the slide was open, sat Jean, a
very picture of despair.

"Mighty man! And have ye been in here all this toim, an' not to be
smothered dead!" cried Mary.

"How could I be anywhere _else_, I'd like to know?" said Jean,
indignantly. "I called and _called_, but I couldn't get you to let me
out," and, bouncing up, she scrabbled the plates back into their box, then
caught up the camera to see if all was as it should be with that. As she
jumped up the slide closed, and, quite unaware that it had ever been open,
she announced to her nearly convulsed audience:

"Well, I'm _out_ at last, and now I hope I can take a picture; come on,
Helen," little dreaming that the treacherous sunlight, which flashed
through the hall window and straight into the pot-closet, had already
printed a most perfect one on the plate.

A few moments later both she and Helen were out in the fields back of the
house, and had snapped charming little scenes.

Bemoaning her unintentional trick, Mary went back to her work, while Mrs.
Rockwood went up to her room to laugh heartily over the mishap, never
suspecting that the funniest part would appear in the sequel.

A half hour later the girls came flying into her room to say, excitedly:

[Illustration: "AN' HAVE YE BEEN IN THERE ALL THIS TIME?"]

"We've taken them! We've taken them!"

"And I know they will be just lovely, for the sun shone right on the trees
and the ruins. How I wish we could develop them; don't you, Helen?"

"Yes, I'd like to know how, and, now that I have the camera, I shall get a
developing outfit and learn; but let's take these right over to Charlton's
and have him develop them for us."

They started for the village to leave the plates to be developed, and
waited with what patience they could for the following day, when the
photographer promised to send them the proofs.

They came, and one at least was truly a marvel.

In the foreground of Jean's was a pretty clump of fir-trees growing besid