“Well, about all we brought was clothes and bedding,” said Miss Zillah. “Sister Adnah wanted me to bring along dishes and pictures and curtains and all manner of things, but I said ‘No, wait. We won’t be needing pictures or curtains, where there’s a picture out of every window and no one to be looking in at night, and if we’ve no other dishes we can eat out of gourds.’” Miss Zillah gave one of her odd little laughs—one of the gypsy laughs in which she sometimes indulged. “It’s a fit home for anybody,” she decided. “I can’t hardly wait to get my hands on it and clean it up.” “Well, let’s don’t wait,” cried Azalea. “Mr. McEvoy can bring our things right here when he comes, can’t he, Mrs. McEvoy. Oh, yes, and is there a place for the ponies?” “No,” Mis’ Cassie told them. “The ponies is to be kept at our place. Miles will fetch ’em when you want them.” “Some one is coming,” said Azalea under her breath. “I saw some one walking along the road.” “Why, Azalea, anybody would think you were Robinson Crusoe. Why should you be so surprised to see anybody coming down the road?” asked Carin. Azalea did not answer for a moment. She moved nearer to the door and looked out; then drew back suddenly. “Oh,” she said under her breath, “it’s that boy we saw on the cars—that young man, I mean. You know—Keefe O’Connor.” “Oh, is that so?” said Carin in the most matter-of-fact way. “How jolly! Call him in, Azalea.” But Azalea, the friendly one, Azalea who always liked to talk to people, and who, up at the McBirney cabin could hardly let anyone pass the door without saying “come in,” held back unaccountably. Miss Zillah and Mis’ Cassie were still in the kitchen, so they could not be appealed to, and finally it was Carin who ran out of the door and called. But it really was not necessary to call, for Keefe O’Connor had already discovered the little house dropped among the pines as naturally as a ground-bird’s nest, and he had turned aside to investigate it. When he saw the open door and the girls, he took off his hat and swung it. “Isn’t this great!” he cried, not trying to hide his delight. “Do you live here?” “We’ve been here only half an hour,” said Carin. “But in half an hour more I think we may truthfully say that we are living here.” Keefe took it for granted that he was expected to enter. He looked about the house with admiring eyes. “It’s a perfect place,” he said, “for a painter.” “Oh, Carin’s a painter,” Azalea said quickly. How wonderful, she thought, that both Keefe and Carin should be artists. It ought to make them good friends. “And are you an artist too?” asked Keefe, turning his dark eyes on Azalea with laughing and admiring inquiry. “Mercy, no,” said Azalea. “I’m nothing—just a girl.” [Picture: “I an artist? Mercy, no,” said Azalea. “I’m nothing—just a girl”] “Oh, I see,” he said, smiling radiantly. Carin broke in cheerfully with: “And are you really staying around here?”