Then she knew. She was only a young girl, but she knew. Somehow, mysteriously and beautifully in this lonely old world, we are able to pick out our own. We know, as we eye them, those who will make us feel befriended and comfortable and safe. At least, we think we know, and even when we find we have been mistaken, we have had the sweetness of the hour of apparent discovery. Yes, it was true; Azalea admitted it as with trembling hands she lighted the lamps, shuddering at the sound of that body being dragged across the floor. Keefe O’Connor, who had said that he did not know his own right name, who admitted that his life had been strange and sad and unsettled, had seemed to her, from the first, like some one she always had known—some one it would be a wicked folly to lose out of her life. Pa McBirney had warned her that she was too impulsive. He had told her that she must watch out for this very thing, and she had promised him that she would try to put a guard upon herself. Yet by a swift understanding which she could not explain, she had felt from the first that she could trust this lad; could forgive him when he needed forgiveness, and take life as it came, with poverty or plenty, with good or ill luck, if he were near to praise her for the long day’s work, or to laugh with her when play-time came. And now perhaps he was dying! There, the lamps were lighted at last! She had touched a match to the kindling in the fireplace; she had tossed on a log. She was willing to do anything rather than turn her face and look upon that white one on the couch where Aunt Zillah and Carin, breathing hard, had managed to lift the inert body of her friend. “Make some black coffee, quick, Azalea,” she heard Aunt Zillah saying. “Make it very strong. Carin, come hold the light while I look in my medicine case.” Black coffee, very strong! How did one make that? Azalea could not think. “Quick, quick,” Aunt Zillah had said. Azalea gave up thinking, because her hands were doing the work. She found that she could trust them, that some faithful servant in her confused house of thought was doing the work for her. The coffee was ground, the fire was lighted, the pot set on—all as it should be—and still it was not of coffee that she was thinking, but of that white face which she would not look at; that fluttering breath that seemed to cease. She could hear Miss Zillah slapping the cold hands of the boy there on the couch; could hear her speaking to him and getting no answer. She wondered why Carin didn’t come to her to say something—to tell her how he was faring. Did they expect her to think of nothing but coffee, coffee, coffee—particularly when it seemed never to boil, never to get where it would be of any use?