They could not decide, and let it pass. Azalea went over to the schoolhouse with Mr. Rowantree and introduced the pupils to him, and gave him an idea of what was to be studied for the day. Mr. Rowantree looked somewhat out of place in the little schoolhouse, to tell the truth; he was so tall, so fine, so altogether magnificent with his reddish brown hair and whiskers and his snowy suit of frayed linen. The children seemed rather awed by him, but Azalea noticed that little Skully Simms kept close to him, preferring him, with all his strangeness, to the Coulters, although the warlike Bud had given bond for good behavior. When she got back home, the house was very still. Carin was lying in the hammock asleep. There were circles under her eyes, and the lovely wild rose bloom was gone from her cheek. “I must take better care of her,” thought Azalea for the twentieth time, stealing past her into the house. Aunt Zillah was giving Keefe some milk, and treating him as gently as if he were glass and might break. “Remember,” she said as she left the room, “he’s not to talk. Two or three days of perfect rest will, in my opinion, make him all right. It isn’t anything unusual for a young man to overstrain his heart. He might have done it in school athletics and then he wouldn’t have been a hero at all. Mr. Thompson was looking for you, Zalie. He starts in a short time for Bee Tree, so that Mr. Panther may have a little rest between his wagon ride and his train journey. Mr. Thompson is going with him straight to the hospital. Carin gave him the money—except for a little—a very little—addition which I made. So now, all is well again, or on the way to be well, and you must go and lie down. Take a glass of milk first and sleep as long as you can. I’m going out to see to the chickens. They’ve been sadly neglected, poor things.” Azalea stood in the cool, tidy little room vaguely regarding the lad on the sofa. He looked amazingly long as he lay stretched out, all relaxed and pallid like that. The “sad-glad” look which Azalea so often had noticed on his face, was there now. He held out his hand for her to come nearer and when she was close enough he whispered: “I oughtn’t to be staying here, Miss Azalea. It’s making trouble I am for Miss Pace and the rest of you. Anyway, it’s not fitting for me to be here. Isn’t this a sort of nunnery?” He smiled in his sidelong, whimsical fashion. “If my tent was to be fixed up right I could wait on myself well enough, and Mr. McEvoy could be bringing me over a drop of soup now and then or a pail of milk.” Azalea made no protest, for she knew how he felt. She would have felt the same way in his place. “We love to have you here,” she said softly. “We truly love it. And it wouldn’t be safe yet for you to go to your tent. But I was thinking—” “Yes?” “How would it be if you went to Rowantree Hall, and got some one—Bud Coulter, or some one like that—to wait on you?”