It came back so suddenly at last that Azalea almost lost her footing, and the next moment, half-blinded by the storm, her poor garments soaked and dripping, her blouse held together by her single hand, Paralee Panther stood in the room. If she had been sullen on other days, she was tragic now. So storm-beaten in body and in spirit was she, that she looked as if all the world was her foe. Indeed, she always seemed to be thinking that, and now as she stood there, frowning from under her dripping hair, the gentle girls at whom she glowered fairly shrank from her. Then Azalea remembered, as by a swift light of the spirit, how misfortune could make one misrepresent one’s self. She thought of herself as she had been in the old days, when, dust-stained, weary, hungry, shy and often resentful, she had slunk along beside the wagons of Sisson’s All Star Show, and of how in reality she had been the same as she was now, friendly and good, loving cleanliness and beauty and all seemliness. She went forward to the girl and seized her hand. “Oh, Paralee,” she said, “I’m so glad now that we came. Miss Pace thought no one would be here; but you started, I suppose, before the storm began. Come to the fire, do. We can take off your dress and hang it on the chair backs—” But she had made a mistake. The girl drew back, her eyes full of that hurt, animal-like anger which was almost always there. “I won’t take off my dress,” she said. Azalea guessed why—that she would not have them see her makeshifts for underclothing. “Perhaps it would be better not,” Azalea said, as if having thought the matter over, she reached the same conclusion. “Come to the fire, then. You will soon dry.” She turned away to give the girl a chance to make herself comfortable in her own manner, and lighted the alcohol stove beneath the shining brass teakettle. She and Carin kept a little store of supplies at school—dainties designed to help out their light luncheons—and now she made a selection from these, and spreading a tray daintily, put it before Paralee. There was the steaming tea, crackers, cookies, cheese, and candied ginger. “Such a queer little meal,” she laughed apologetically, “but it will help to get the damp out of you. You must feel quite like a sponge, Paralee.” The girl looked up from under her heavy brows. “What is a sponge?” she demanded.