After a time the young people were called for, and the older ones took their seats. The young wives went and their brown-faced husbands, and the fresh-faced, wistful girls, and the boys with their bright eyes. Azalea loved to look at them, they seemed so strong and contented. She liked the bright frocks of the girls, and the way their hair was braided, and though she tried to think of other things, she fell to picturing a green lawn frock she would have some day when she made money for herself, and the figured sash—green leaves on a white ground—she would wear with it. Just then, the man who was sitting next Azalea arose and went over by the window, and a moment later some one slipped down into the place he had left and gave Azalea’s hand a squeeze. Azalea turned her head as quick as a frightened bird, and there sat Carin Carson, smiling at her as if they were old friends. “I was so glad when I saw you here,” she whispered. “Isn’t it a pity they don’t ask the children to sing? I just love to sing, don’t you?” Azalea shook her head. She had sung many a time for the people who came to the show, but she had hated the silly songs she was made to sing, and as she thought of them now she blushed. “I don’t believe I really can sing,” she whispered back. “I could once, but my voice is spoiled. I sang too loud, and now it’s all rough and horrid.” “I don’t believe it,” returned her friend. “Your voice is so pleasant when you speak that I don’t see how it can be horrid when you sing. I’m to have a singing teacher come to the house twice a week, and I wish you’d come down some time and have her hear you. Perhaps you sing a great deal better than you think you do.” “No, no,” whispered Azalea, shaking her head. “I do everything wrong!” Carin laughed under her breath and gave her friend’s hand another squeeze. She was thinking that Azalea was the prettiest girl in the place, but she had been taught that it was not nice to pay people compliments, and so she said nothing of what was in her mind. But she decided that she would enjoy Azalea’s society for that day, and when the singing adjourned for the people to eat their lunch, Carin insisted that the McBirneys and her people should eat together. So, by dint of urging and introducing, she finally had the pleasure of seeing her father and mother and Mr. and Mrs. McBirney seated together beneath the shade of some glorious tulip trees, spreading their luncheons out on one table cloth.