But it was a happy dinner for all of that. Between courses Rowantree himself offered to sing them an old ballad, and in a rich bass voice which set the echoes of the wood at work, he thundered the lines of “The Maid of Bohea.” There was great applause, and he sang again. It was to his singing of “Bold Robin Hood,” that Azalea and his wife brought in the custard pie and the homemade cheese, and to the sad strains of “A Sailor There Was” that they finally cleared the table. After dinner everyone turned in to help, save the master of the house, who still felt the need of quiet and of looking down what he called “the approach,” by which he meant the winding road that led from the house to the gate. If Mr. Rowantree could sing old English ballads, Mrs. Rowantree could sing, most bewitchingly, old Irish lyrics. Carin and Azalea could sing, too, though not like their friend Annie Laurie. Keefe had plenty of good will even if he had not much of a voice, and Miss Zillah had a sweet little silver thread of song which she was not ashamed to display. So among them they had a musical afternoon, accompanied by one and another on the old square piano with its rattling keys. The gentle shower that had fallen during dinner had passed as quietly as it came, and the sun shone softly through the wet shining leaves of the trees into the room. However, it was just before going home that Azalea had her real “adventure.” Mrs. Rowantree had drawn her arm through her own, and the two of them had strolled together down one of the laurel-edged paths of the place. “Keefe O’Connor has been telling me your story,” Mary Cecily said gently, “and I want to say that it’s myself who knows how to sympathize with you.” “Oh,” Azalea replied with a sharp little catch of the breath, “I didn’t know anyone had told Keefe about me.” “Never fear but the story will follow you,” returned Mrs. Rowantree with an accent of wisdom. “Stories good and bad have a way of following one. But this I will say, Miss Azalea: I honor you for what you’ve done and the way you’ve clung to those who took you in when you were homeless. It’s very like my own story—very like, indeed.” “Is it?” asked Azalea, forgetting herself at once and warming to her companion. “Have you been alone in the world, Mrs. Rowantree?” “Alone in a way you never were, Miss Azalea, for I lost through my own heedlessness the one living creature that should have been my care, and the knowledge of it is always eating at my heart in spite of my good husband and my blessed babes.” “Oh, Mrs. Rowantree,” cried the girl, distressed, “aren’t you blaming yourself for something that wasn’t really your fault?” Mary Cecily turned her misty eyes toward Azalea, tragedy brooding in them.