Not a pupil in the school but had made headway. Some of them had done extraordinarily well. Dibblee Sikes had cried whenever the last day of school was mentioned; but he cheered up when Azalea assured him that there should be a “moonlight school” for his mother. “Maybe,” said Azalea, “it can be arranged so that there will be a day school all winter long for you youngsters.” “But you’ll not be here, ma’am,” said Dibblee. “No one can learn us like you and Miss Carin. There’s been teachers here that just yelled at us and we got so skeered we couldn’t learn nothin’. All the fun we had was running away from school.” “You shan’t have that kind of a teacher, I promise,” Azalea assured him. “Oh, Dibblee, if only I knew enough I’d stay right here and teach you all the time; but, you see, I have to go to school myself for a long time yet. As I am now, I should soon run out of learning and you would get ahead of me.” She laughed gayly and Dibblee laughed with her. There was much laughter about the schoolhouse these days, and it was no longer because some one had blundered or met with an accident. They laughed now because they were happy, because their shyness had ceased to be a torment to them, and because they felt that they were more like other children—not strange, not some one who needed a “missionary” to help them on. Of all the services that Azalea and Carin had been able to perform for them, the bestowing upon them of self-esteem was the greatest. Just how this result had been attained it would be hard to say. Perhaps it was the gentleness, the unfailing politeness of their young teachers and their way of seeming as “kin” to these shy, wild, suspicious young creatures, that had done it. “It’s like teaching squirrels to eat from the hand,” Azalea had said more than once to Carin. Little had been seen of the Rowantrees and nothing of Keefe since the day Keefe went to his sister’s home, but they were all, even the children, coming to school for the “last day.” The parents of the pupils were coming too, not only that they might, like parents the world over, swell with pride over the accomplishments of their offspring, but also because word had been sent broadcast that the moonlight school would be under discussion. There were few flowers left on the mountain side by this time, but the prettiest imaginable decorations had been contrived with spurge and galax, rhododendron leaves and vines. The place was really a bower, and the children were clean and fresh for the occasion. Indeed, it may well be doubted if certain of them had ever been so freshened and decorated as on this day. Their young teachers had led them to believe that they were to expect high festival, and they themselves were in the most charming of their white frocks, with the little strings of gold beads which Mrs. Carson had given them at Christmas.