“Nope. They’re all right, I reckon. Mr. Thompson, he’s to take ’em down to the afternoon train. Pa ain’t looking very peart, but it warn’t to be expected that he would. Ma acts like she was scared to death, but Mis’ McEvoy’s fixing her out in proper clothes. Mr. McEvoy, he’s gone down to Bee Tree to do some telegraphing about the hospital pa’s to go in. My, ain’t they rich!” “Rich!” cried Azalea aghast. “Who?” “Oh, the McEvoys and Mr. Thompson.” “Rich!” repeated Azalea. But the words died on her lips. So Paralee thought the McEvoys in their two-roomed cabin, and good old Haystack with his fiddle, rich! She only said: “Have you had breakfast, Paralee?” The girl shook her head. “Come in then. Things are cooked now, and you can eat and then run to Rowantree’s. But you _are_ obliging, Paralee!” Paralee looked at her with something akin to impatience. “Say,” she said deep in her throat, “don’t you thank me for nothing, you hear? If I was to crawl on my hands and knees around this here mountain, it wouldn’t even up with what you’re doing for me. Why, Miss Azalea, I thought I’d go crazy thinking about my pa and ma in that thar place—plumb crazy, that’s what I thought I’d go. Ma laid it up against Pete for running away. I tell you, he had to. It got so awful he just had to.” “I suppose he did,” said Azalea sympathetically. She knew very well—for she was still a child—that there are troubles so dark and hopeless that children cannot endure them. A few moments later, standing by the door, she saw Paralee striding along the old, overgrown road that ran toward Rowantree Hall. She had confidence, somehow, that Mr. Rowantree would not fail her. Indolent he might be, odd and proud and vexatious he undeniably was, yet he had a reverence for the seeking mind, and she felt he would not let these mountain children ask in vain. She was quite right. An hour before school time she saw him mounted on a sorry nag, which he rode magnificently and as if it were the most dashing of horse flesh, coming toward her door. He dismounted with a splendid gesture, and riding crop in hand, came forward toward the Oriole’s Nest. By this time Aunt Zillah was sleeping properly in her bed, and Keefe, wide-eyed and restless, lay on the sofa with instructions neither to move nor talk. So Azalea met Mr. Rowantree outside the door and hurriedly told him all the story of the past two days. As he stood there on the little porch, he, being tall, could look well over her head at the figure of Keefe lying stretched upon the sofa. It was a sight to make him sorry, but not one, it would seem, to hold him fascinated. Yet he gazed and gazed; then, trying to look away, looked in again. “Who is it that boy looks like, Miss Azalea?” he asked. “Somebody—” “I know,” replied Azalea under her breath. “Somebody—but who?”