After that, the short days of winter passed as happily for the three girls as days can be expected to pass in a world which some discouraged person called “a vale of tears.” Alert as their minds were, each was decidedly different from the other, and they had the effect of spurring each other on. Carin was, of course, really more interested in her drawing and painting than in anything else, although she was a good student, too. Annie Laurie simply devoured books, and her happiest diversion was music. A good teacher came weekly from Rutherford, a town near by, to give her instruction. But Azalea took neither drawing nor singing lessons. She had much housework to do before and after school, and her long ride down the mountain each morning and back again at night, with the fatigue it entailed, had to be taken into account. Then she helped with the sewing and with the weaving, and so had neither time nor strength for anything else. Once Mrs. Carson said to her husband:

“Perhaps we were wrong not to insist on having Azalea live with us. It is true that few children have so much love and care given them as she has there with the dear McBirneys. But she has to share their poverty too, and their hard work. Do you think she will be worn out, Charles? Children seem so precious to me. I can’t bear to see their strength wasted.”

“My dear, she is being made into a very capable girl,” Mr. Carson answered reassuringly. “She is having the sort of training our pioneer ancestors had, and they grew stronger for their tasks and hardships. You and I are not going to live forever, you know, and our Carin will never want to take up the work we’re doing here among the mountain people. She’ll be off to Paris or Rome, I suppose, picture seeing and making. But here’s Azalea, in the most practical arts and crafts school possible. She sees the mountain handicrafts made every day right before her eyes, and when she’s grown she’ll be able to teach others. She’ll come in here and take up the work where we leave off.”

“Charles Carson,” cried his wife indignantly, shocked for once out of her sweet placidity, “what do you mean by speaking of us as if we were old? Why, we’re hardly middle-aged.”

“Aren’t we?” said Mr. Carson rather wearily, yet smiling too. “I didn’t know, Lucy. Sometimes it seems to me as if I had lived a long time.”

His wife was silent. She knew what he meant. Who could know better? The day of blight that took from them their three fine sons had left them disinclined to go on playing the game of life. They had tried many things, and at length had come into this quiet valley, where there was so much uncomplaining poverty, where the people had latent talents that only needed encouragement to make them bread-winning forces, and they had endeavored to make themselves necessary.

They had bought the beautiful old home that long years before had belonged to Azalea’s grandfather, Colonel Atherton, and they had showered their favors right and left and tried to make their influence felt in all parts of the county. Their love of doing something, of building up, was as a fresh wind blowing in a sultry plain. For a lassitude had hung over the beautiful valley of Lee—a lassitude born of long years of loneliness, lack of opportunity and monotony. Too little had happened; there had been too few ways of earning money; too few strangers had come that way. One day was so like another that a spell lay upon the people, and they moved as in a long dream. But it was different now. There was some use in making the strong, hand-woven cloth, the durable, quaint chairs and the curious baskets, for Mr. Carson saw that they were profitably marketed.

Mr. Carson had induced the mother of Hi Kitchell, a little worn woman with three children to support, to come down from the mountains and oversee his industries for him. He had given her a little home on the level spot known as the Field of Arrows, an ancient Indian camping ground, and here the young women came to learn the weaving of baskets and of cloth. The front room was the shop, where the people came to buy these interesting wares.

Here, too, the three girls came sometimes after school for a cup of tea and some homemade cake—for Mrs. Kitchell served these comforts to all who wished them—and sitting around her fire, they listened to her stories and told tales of their own adventures. Sometimes there would be a dozen or more in the tea room, whiling away the tedium of a winter afternoon. Hi and the other children helped with the serving, and now and then “for the fun of it” Jim McBirney or Sam Disbrow took a hand. There always was plenty to do at the Mountain Industries, it seemed, however slack work might be elsewhere.

One day of cold rain, Azalea and Annie Laurie had stopped in at Mrs. Kitchell’s for a cup of tea before they made their way to their distant homes. There was no one there that afternoon, save the sharp-eyed, busy Mrs. Kitchell, and she, having served them, went back to the loom-room and left them to themselves. The girls were excellent friends now. They trusted and admired each other—counted on each other, as true friends should.

“Azalea,” said Annie Laurie, “I never understood rightly about your ‘cousin Barbara.’ I’ve heard you speak of her, but I’m not quite clear as to who she is.”

Azalea laughed lightly.

“She isn’t really my cousin at all,” she said. “I have no kin, Annie Laurie. But I have told you, have I not, how my poor mamma and I were traveling with a dreadful show when she died; and how we had got as far as the McBirney’s cottage, and Ma McBirney—as Jim calls her—had my dear mamma buried right there near the house, where her own little Molly’s grave is? Then she asked the show people to let her take me, and they wouldn’t. And so the dear, brave thing took me anyway, and ran away up into the mountains with me and hid with me in a cave. And Pa McBirney and some of his friends stayed down at the house, with shotguns, and scared the show folk away. Well, Sisson, Hi Kitchell’s uncle, who was at the head of the show, was terribly angry, and he made up his mind he would have me back again. So one time, when we all went off to a ‘Singing,’ he managed to get me, and to carry me away, and for weeks I was taken from one place to another in the mountains, away off the beaten tracks, always hiding. Oh, it was such a time, Annie!”

“I know,” said the other sympathetically. “Of course I heard about that. We were all so excited, wondering if you’d be found, and I just cried when I heard that you were, and that good old Haystack Thompson was bringing you home. I didn’t know you—and I couldn’t even remember having seen you—but I felt interested in you from that moment.”

“Well, perhaps you heard that I managed to run away from the people who were hiding me, and I went down the mountain in the night, and came to the little town at the foot of it, and crept into a house there, and into a sleeping-porch with a bed in it. Oh, I was so tired—so tired it was almost like dying. I don’t really remember getting in that bed; but I was found there in the morning by Mr. Summers, who is a Methodist minister, you know. His wife is Barbara Summers. And they have the dearest baby you ever saw or heard of—Jonathan Summers, he is, bless him. Well, Mrs. Summers is just a little dear thing with brown eyes—she’s no bigger than I am. And from the minute we saw each other, we loved each other and felt at home. So we decided that we’d be kin. I write to her one week, and she writes to me the next. She sends me pictures of Jonathan that she takes with her little camera, and I send her presents when I can—little woven table-covers or baskets. You’ve no idea how sweet she is, Annie Laurie.”

“You seem to make friends whenever you please, Azalea. It’s so easy for you! The Paces aren’t like that. It’s hard for them to let themselves go and say the thing that comes into their minds. We’re stiff, someway. But when we do make friends, we keep them.”

“Be sure to keep me, Annie Laurie. I nearly lost you through my own carelessness, and I mean to hang on to you now. Well, come, let’s start for home.”

But as it turned out, it was raining most dismally. A dark cloud had tumbled off the mountain and settled down over the valley, and though it was not late, it seemed almost like night.

“Goodness me,” said Annie Laurie, “I don’t like to think of you riding away up on the mountain a night like this. Why, you’d be drenched.”

“I ought to have accepted Carin’s invitation and stayed all night with her,” said Azalea. “Mother doesn’t expect me on bad nights. She’s not to worry about me if I don’t come when it rains or snows.”

“Oh, stay with me, Azalea! It’s just the chance I’ve been wanting. You’ve never been in my home except on that funny day when we all had conniption fits—especially Aunt Adnah. But, honestly, Aunt Adnah is a brick if you know her.”Azalea giggled. “Yes, she did seem to have some of the properties of a brick—hardness, for example. She hit me between the eyes.”

“Well, she’ll make it up to you now, if you’ll give her a chance. Of course she wouldn’t say that she wants to make up, but she does.”

“I’d just love to stay all night with you,” Azalea said. “I’ll take the pony back to the Carsons’ stable, and then we’ll walk over to your house.”

“Very well. I’ll go with you to the stable.” They put the pony in the stall, and then, wrapped in their raincoats, tramped along over the red pine needles to Annie Laurie’s home.

“Don’t feel at all backward, will you, Azalea?” the other girl said as they stood on the doorstep. “You just have a little pluck and everything will come out all right.”

Azalea laughed.

“You don’t half understand me yet, Annie Laurie,” she said. “You’re so much more serious than I am. I can’t help enjoying things even when they are serious. I know I oughtn’t to feel that way, but I think it will be awfully funny to see your Aunt Adnah’s face when she finds I’ve had the impudence to come again.”Annie Laurie frowned a trifle. She was not quite sure she liked to have her aunt regarded as amusing. However, they went in together. The door of the grim little parlor was closed, but the living-room door stood open and Annie Laurie led the way in. There was an ugly brussels carpet on the floor, and a center table covered with a chenille cloth; on it was the reading lamp, and ranged about it were comfortable chairs. A black marble clock ticked noisily on the mantel shelf, and a low fire smouldered among the ashes. The scrim curtains had many colored figures in them, and helped to keep out the light of the declining day. Azalea could not help contrasting it with the exquisite rooms at The Shoals, and with the quaint, charming rooms in the McBirney cabin. She could understand some of the bitter things that Annie Laurie had said to her—could see that, somehow, life had been commonplace for this girl from the first, and that, though she did not altogether realize it, it was this common-placeness which made her dissatisfied.

“Wherever can the aunts be?” said Annie Laurie. “The fire is out in the kitchen, and there are no signs of supper. Usually at this hour, things are humming like a bee hive. Take off your things, Azalea. I’ll hang them up where they’ll dry. You sit right down before the fire, and I’ll bring in some wood.”

“But let me help, Annie Laurie.”

“No, no. You’re company. I don’t often have company.” She went away with Azalea’s things and then came back and stood looking at her guest with her glowing eyes. “Azalea,” she said intensely, “I never have company!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know why not. I’m not supposed to want it. I’m to study and work, and mend and practice my music, and be doing something from early till late. It isn’t that they’re not kind to me—my aunts and my father—but they’re so dreadfully serious and conscientious.”

“It does throw a damper over everything, being conscientious like that,” mused Azalea.

Annie Laurie looked startled to hear her own secret idea put in words.

“For goodness sake,” she cried, “don’t let the aunts hear you say that!”

Azalea laughed teasingly.

“I’d really like to try that on Aunt Adnah,” she said.Annie Laurie was getting used to her friend, and she made no reply. She ran upstairs for a moment, and came down clothed in a warm brown wrapper, and carrying another one of equally uninviting color on her arm.

“Slip into this, Azalea,” she commanded, “and let me hang your dress out in the hall near the heater. There now, lie down on the sofa—so. I’ll lie down too with my head the other way, and we’ll wrap ourselves in my grandfather’s old army blankets. I’m dead tired, aren’t you? I don’t see where the aunts are.”

She yawned wearily, and Azalea caught the contagion and stretched her pretty mouth in imitation.

“Oh, it’s cosy, isn’t it?” Azalea murmured. Neither spoke again. Their eyes were fixed on the smouldering coals, which seemed to hypnotize them, and presently they both slept.

Just how long they lay there, comfortably resting, Azalea could not tell, but when she opened her eyes the twilight had deepened. Annie Laurie was still deep in sleep. The fire had quickened, and by its glow Azalea could see that some one had entered the room. For a moment she was startled, but then she saw that it was Annie Laurie’s father, Simeon Pace; so she lay still, not liking to speak, since she was not sure he would know her. He did not see the two girls on the sofa, and it was quite evident that he thought himself alone. Azalea watched him sleepily, and saw him take off his coat and throw it on the chair. Then he began twisting his arm in a most inhuman manner, and Azalea’s blood was frozen as she saw him loosen it at the elbow and lay it beside the coat, until she chanced to remember about its being merely a tin substitute for an arm. His next act was to take a long pocketbook or wallet from the mantel, draw something from it, stuff it into his hollow arm and deftly strap the arm into place again.

“How funny,” thought Azalea. “How Jim will laugh when I tell him about it!”

Then she remembered that she had been unintentionally spying, and that it would not be at all fair to tell what she had seen. She knew Ma McBirney would not like her to mention anything she had seen under such circumstances. So she lay as still as a lizard, hardly breathing, and finally Mr. Pace left the room. A moment later she heard the two aunts bustling about in the kitchen. There was a poking at the stove, a lighting of lamps, a rattling of dishes, and it was evident that the household was being set in motion again.

“Where are you, Annie Laurie, child?” called the voice of Miss Zillah. “We’ve been out to the sewing circle, and it was so late before the refreshments were served that we couldn’t hold our business meeting till after five. Then on the way home we heard Mrs. Disbrow was worse and Hannah laid up with a cold and we dropped in to see them, though I must say they’re a shiftless lot. We thought you and your father wouldn’t mind if supper was a little late. What you lying there for, child? And mercy me, how big you look! Why, no wonder, there’s two of you. It’s you, Azalea? How do you do?”

“I’m very well, ma’am,” said Azalea rather shyly. “I hope you didn’t mind my coming. It was so rainy and horrid, Annie Laurie asked me to spend the night.”

“Why, you’re as welcome as sunrise, of course. Sister Adnah, here is Azalea McBirney. She’s come to spend the night with us.”

Azalea wondered what was going to happen then. Miss Adnah had been quite vicious on the occasion of her former visit; but the mischievous spirit in the girl made her rather enjoy the uncertainty. Miss Adnah, she decided, could do no more than eat her up. But Miss Adnah was over her bad temper. She came in holding out her hand gravely.

“It was a wise thing for you to stay in the valley to-night,” she said primly. “I’m sure Mrs. McBirney wouldn’t want you to climb the mountain in such a drizzle.”

She avoided committing herself to a mere piece of flattery. She didn’t say she was glad Azalea was there, but for some reason, the girl did not feel chilled. She knew Annie Laurie wanted her, and it seemed to her that as the daughter of the house, Annie Laurie ought to enjoy some privileges. However, a few minutes later, when she was in Annie Laurie’s sober, tidy room, putting on her dress and freshening her hair, she overheard Miss Zillah saying softly to Annie Laurie in the next room:

“Sister Adnah thinks you should not invite anyone to the house without first asking permission, my dear. As for myself, I’m glad to see you have friends and feel free to ask them, but it would be well to make certain preparations.”

“Not at all, Aunt Zillah,” answered Annie Laurie hotly. “I’ve never had a girl to stay all night—never. I asked Azalea because it was raining. I couldn’t tell it was going to rain, or that I was going to ask her. I’m old enough now to use some sense, I hope, and I want it so that I can act without first having a period of fasting and prayer. You and Aunt Adnah were late to-night—”

“My dear, it is the first time we have been late to our duties, so far as I can remember, since we assumed them.”

“Oh, you don’t understand at all. I’m glad you were late. Why shouldn’t you be, if you wished? And your duties—why do you speak of what you do in the house like that? It’s not a duty to live and work and eat and sleep and all. It’s a pleasure. At least, that’s the way Carin and Azalea look at it. What I wanted to say was that for once you acted on impulse. You stayed till meeting was out, and you stopped in to see some sick neighbors. Well, I think that’s fine. Now, I asked my friend to stay all night. No preparation is needed. The cellar is bursting with food, the pantry is plumb full of it; there’s milk and cream to float a town and butter enough to grease all the engines in the world—”

“Annie Laurie!”

“Well, Aunt Adnah wears my patience out. I’m going to ask my friends here when it seems best.”

“My dear, you know we only ask you to use judgment.”

“Judgment? I don’t know what that means. I’ll use hospitality, if you like, and courtesy—”

“To your aunts, among others, I hope.”

“Bless your heart!” Azalea heard Annie Laurie cry softly. “You’re a dear, Aunt Zillah. Was I ever rude to you?”

“Not directly, my dear child. But you sometimes speak of my sister in a manner which I cannot regard as really respectful.”

“Forgive me, Aunt Zillah. I’ve too much mustard and pepper in my disposition. But there’s the supper bell. Azalea! Azalea, are you ready?”

They sat down at a bountiful table, and Simeon Pace folded his hand of flesh and his hand of tin together and prayed long and loud—something about the “sundering of joints and marrow.” Azalea, who was very hungry, hardly seemed to get the drift of these words. But she was startled from her dazed reverie by a sharp inquiry from Mr. Pace.

“So you two girls were asleep there before the fire, were you? Did you see me when I came in?” He turned his large eyes—so like and yet so unlike Annie Laurie’s—upon first one girl and then the other.

“I didn’t,” said his daughter.

“And you, Miss Azalea?”

“I awoke while you were in the room,” she said, feeling somewhat like Jack when he talked with the Giant Eater.

“So?” he looked at her sharply. “Why didn’t you speak?”

“I—I wasn’t sure you’d know me, sir.” She paused a moment and sat steady under the look he kept upon her. “Anyway, I was just as good as asleep—half dreaming.”

“And you never tell your dreams, I hope? It’s a bad habit.”

Azalea smiled at him.

“I never, never tell them, sir,” she said.

“Good,” cried Simeon Pace. “A sensible girl wouldn’t, of course. Let me serve you some meat, Miss Azalea.”

And she understood clearly that she had given a tacit promise that she would not tell what she had seen; and Simeon Pace felt the reliable character of her, beneath her soft, girlish aspect, and trusted her.