“I would,” said little Mrs. Barbara tenderly. “And now come, you starved child, and eat your breakfast.” While Azalea ate, she and Mrs. Summers exchanged confidences. Azalea told her the full story of her “strange life” as she called it; and Mrs. Summers told her about her happy girlhood, and her days away at boarding school, and how her parents had wished her to marry a young man who lived near them, and whom she had known all her life, and who was rich and of high social position, and how she had just had to marry Absalom Summers who had no money, and who didn’t know—or care—what you meant when you talked about a social position. “And I’m so happy,” said the clergyman’s little wife, “in this dear funny little house—” “And with that dear funny little baby,” broke in Azalea. “That I really can’t be thankful enough,” concluded Mrs. Summers. “Well,” said Azalea, “you’d be surprised if you could know of the perfectly lovely people I’ve been meeting these days.” “Not Bet Bowen and her son?” teased Mrs. Summers. Azalea flushed a little. “But really and truly, they had their good side, Mrs. Summers,” she said earnestly. “They weren’t half as bad to me as they might have been.” “You dear child! I’m sure they weren’t. And perhaps in their hearts they are glad you got away.” Azalea clasped her hands and swung them up over her head with a curious, excited gesture. “You can make up your mind that I’m glad, Mrs. Summers. Just think, I’m really free again, and I’m going back to Ma McBirney, and Carin and all the rest.” The baby had been taken from its bath and clothed in fresh garments, and now its mother made herself comfortable in a low rocking chair, and drew the fuzzy head against her shoulder. “I’m going to rock him to sleep,” she explained. “So we’ll have to stop talking a while.” Azalea smiled till all of her teeth gleamed. “I’ll try,” she said, “but I know it will be hard. Honest, I never talked so much before in my life. I’ve always been afraid of people a little, or thought it wasn’t polite to talk like this. But someway—you don’t mind my saying it, do you, Mrs. Summers?—you seem almost like my own sister. I couldn’t _help_ talking to you. You may be married and older than I am, but you’re no bigger. And then you’ve been so good—so good I couldn’t say.” “Sh, dear,” murmured the little mother. And she crooned the baby to sleep while the girl, sitting on a hassock near, watched her with admiring eyes. Then, when baby was quiet, the two worked together about the little house till all was tidy and as it should be, and little Mrs. Summers made her confession too. “I get dreadfully lonely at times,” she said. “The people here are good as good can be, but they’re different from the people I’m used to. I can’t seem to make myself feel quite free with them. Why, I’ve told you more, Azalea, than I have them, and I’ve only known you such a little, little few minutes.”