The little silvery shower which had helped to make Sunday charming, sent along a number of less agreeable members of its family the following day. Azalea and Carin opened their eyes upon a rain-smitten landscape, and down the chimney blew a damp wind. It made a failure of breakfast, for the kitchen stove absolutely refused to draw, and it sent the girls out finally in a pelting shower. “You are foolish to go,” Miss Zillah told them, really quite out of patience with them for the first time. “There will be no pupils at the school to-day. You might much better stay at home and keep dry. I can’t think that your parents would approve of your going out in such a storm.” But what was the use of having rubber boots and raincoats and rubber caps and umbrellas, if they were not to be used? So the girls argued till they finally won Miss Zillah’s consent. It really was rather a lark to be out in a buffeting storm like that. They could hardly see for the downpour, but they ran on, heads lowered, skirts gathered close, and were presently in the little schoolhouse. “We’ll have to light the lamps,” said Azalea. “Not a soul could see to study in this place to-day.” “You remind me of Ma McBirney,” said Carin, wiping the rain from her face. “Your first thought is always to make the room bright. Now me, I think of myself first.” Azalea took off her dripping coat, removed the rubber boots from her slippered feet, released her head from its cap and looked about her, shivering a little. “Do you know why?” she asked. “In the old days when my own mamma and I were wanderers, going from place to place with that terrible show, we were often so cold and wretched that no words could describe it. Yet mamma always tried to make some sort of a little cosy spot for me—some sort of a nest that I could get into. It might only be a ragged comfortable in a corner of the wagon; or it might be a place under a tree near the camp fire. She didn’t seem to care how she got along, if only she could make me happy. I realize now how often she went without food to feed me well, and how she gave me the best of everything. I was told about that by poor old Betty Bowen that time Sisson kidnapped me.” “Oh, don’t talk about that, Azalea,” cried her friend, throwing her arms about her and kissing her on the cheek with a sort of desperate tenderness. “I can’t bear it. Oh, those nights that we didn’t know where you were!”