“That’s right,” said Miss Zillah from her bed. “I myself have always been too anxious. It runs in the Pace blood to be serious and care-taking. But now that I’m middle-aged and have taken time for thought I see that owls have never been as much liked as larks. So you be a lark, Azalea. That’s what you naturally are, anyway.” Azalea gave a little chuckle. She liked Miss Zillah’s way of putting things; moreover, these particular words stuck in her memory. She contrived to “be a lark” at breakfast, and she insisted on helping Mis’ Cassie McEvoy with the dishes and on entering with vivacity into the discussion of whether medicine that was good for rheumatism would cure heartburn. Two bottles of patent medicine which were enjoying the most favor just at that time, stood on a tiny shelf above the kitchen table. One was very fat and contained a dark liquid, and this Azalea secretly named “Bluebeard.” The other was slender, tall and filled with a pinkish stuff, and this she called “The Princess Madeline.” She told Carin, and they amused themselves by watching to see which was most in favor. As nearly as they could make out, Mis’ Cassie favored Bluebeard of mornings and so probably turned to Princess Madeline along toward night. Mr. McEvoy had gone down to Bee Tree to get the three horses which Mr. Carson was having sent up. Mustard and Paprika were coming, with a gentle old nag which had been one of Miss Zillah’s best friends for many years and which bore the name of Minerva. So, the house being tidied, the four women folk started out—Mis’ Cassie acting as guide—and went to look at the schoolhouse and the little cabin where Miss Zillah was to set up housekeeping with the girls. The log schoolhouse, which had been unused for four years, lay four-square to the compass, facing the purple south. Not that the south had any advantage over the other points of the compass in regard to its color. All the world, except, of course, the immediate foreground, was purple up at Sunset Gap. The mountains threw up peak after peak through the purple dimness, and the sky itself lost something of its blue brightness because of the purple veils which drifted between it and the sweet-smelling earth. “Time was,” explained Mis’ Cassie, “when this here school was kep’ up fine. That was when the Ravenels lived over to the Hall. Mr. Theodore Ravenel was pore in his health and he come up this-away to git well. He and his wife and his children lived to the Hall—” “What is the Hall? Where is it, please?” asked Azalea.