“We have heard from them,” cried Annie Laurie eagerly from the hall. “Carin telephoned, Aunt Zillah; but Aunt Adnah wouldn’t let her talk.”
“I should think not, indeed,” came the voice of Aunt Adnah.
“Oh, come in, Annie Laurie, please,” cried Azalea, running toward the hall door.
Annie Laurie made a motion as if for flight, then brought herself up sharply, and faced Azalea. Miss Zillah had arisen and stood smiling and trembling a trifle, too, like a rose bush softly shaken by the wind. Her lips moved slightly, and Annie Laurie, flashing a glance at her as she came into the room, understood that Aunt Zillah was putting up one of her gentle supplications for peace.
“Oh, Annie Laurie,” Azalea burst forth, “I’ve come to ask you to forgive me. You really, really must. I had no idea how you were feeling. I’m terribly unhappy about it. Don’t you think you can forgive me?”
“What is there for me to forgive?” asked Annie Laurie. “You didn’t want me—you and Carin—and you showed it. That’s all there is to it. I shan’t bother you any more.”
“Well, I want you now,” declared Azalea. “You can see yourself that it would be impossible for Carin and me to be happy with you leaving that way, all hurt and angry. I don’t blame you a bit, really. Except, of course, I think you shut up like a clam when you saw that we didn’t like a third person in the classes. It wasn’t that we objected to you in particular. We were selfish, that’s all, and fond of our own good times; but it won’t be like that again, honestly it won’t. Your aunt says I mustn’t speak for Carin and Mrs. Carson, and I see that I mustn’t, but I know so well that I am saying just what they would want me to say, that I can’t keep still.” She turned toward Miss Zillah, and caught the worn hand of the woman in hers. “Truly,” she said, “they’d be saying just what I am, if they were here.”
“That boy again!” exploded Miss Adnah from the hall. “He’s looking in the hall window again.”
“It’s only poor Hi,” explained Azalea. “You see, he’s always afraid something is going to happen to me.”
“Well, if I had my way, it would,” snapped Miss Adnah.