How good it will be to get out of this stuffy little station. The light is so dim I can hardly see. But why should I fret? In two hours I shall be in Mallowbanks, my own home. My own! And I know now, Carin, that it will be a pretty fine thing to go up to my own room and feel that I possess it, and to sit at supper with my own people. Yes, Carin, I realize it more to-night than ever before. And, dear me, I shan’t get in bed till after midnight, I know, with so many Christmas presents to do up and label and all. I’m tying everything with corn-colored ribbon and it looks very pretty. The little presentation cards have daffodils on them. Don’t you like dainty things like that? “It is all very silly,” said Preacher Jim to me. “This money should have gone to the poor.” “Jim,” said I, “it is going to the poor. For everybody in the world is poor. Everybody needs help. Some need money, but more need love, and all this silliness is just a girl’s way of showing love.” “Humph!” said Jim. Isn’t he funny, Carin? Who would have dreamed he would be so solemn? I do hope you’ll like what I’ve sent you; and I’m wild to get home and find your package for me. And Oh, Oh, if there isn’t one, what an Indignant Person I shall be! But there will be, for when have you or your darling parents forgotten me? A thousand Christmas greetings to you all. There is no joy I do not wish you. Salute your hearthstone for me. _Lovingly_, _Azalea_. CHAPTER VIII THE PORTRAIT Mallowbanks, January fifth. _Carin_, _my own one_: Mallowbanks is entertaining an artist—a painter of portraits. His name is Keefe O’Connor; his residence is New York. He was wired for imperatively by Madam Knox who offered him more for the painting of her portrait than he had previously received for any such commission. Telegrams were exchanged. The artist, it appeared, was much engaged. Madam Knox wished more than ever to secure him. She increased her offer. He came—he is here in “the artist’s suite.” Madam Knox sits to him in gray velvet and pearls. Her hair is as white as the drifted snow; her eyebrows are dark and pointed, her little mouth looks secret and proud, her aristocratic nose is a straight line, her old, beautiful eyes are full of vanity and wisdom, sternness and kindness, memories and hopes. She is very wrinkled and very beautiful. The portrait painter appears to be in raptures, and he works early and late and is growing hollow-eyed. My own conviction is that he does not eat enough nor sleep very well. Semmy seems to think he has a secret sorrow. “Miss Zalie,” said she to me—she learned to call me Zalie from the McBirneys—“that theah painter man has somethin’ gnawin’ him, suah.”