“I don’t know why not. I’m not supposed to want it. I’m to study and work, and mend and practice my music, and be doing something from early till late. It isn’t that they’re not kind to me—my aunts and my father—but they’re so dreadfully serious and conscientious.”
“It does throw a damper over everything, being conscientious like that,” mused Azalea.
Annie Laurie looked startled to hear her own secret idea put in words.
“For goodness sake,” she cried, “don’t let the aunts hear you say that!”
Azalea laughed teasingly.
“I’d really like to try that on Aunt Adnah,” she said.
Annie Laurie was getting used to her friend, and she made no reply. She ran upstairs for a moment, and came down clothed in a warm brown wrapper, and carrying another one of equally uninviting color on her arm.
“Slip into this, Azalea,” she commanded, “and let me hang your dress out in the hall near the heater. There now, lie down on the sofa—so. I’ll lie down too with my head the other way, and we’ll wrap ourselves in my grandfather’s old army blankets. I’m dead tired, aren’t you? I don’t see where the aunts are.”
She yawned wearily, and Azalea caught the contagion and stretched her pretty mouth in imitation.
“Oh, it’s cosy, isn’t it?” Azalea murmured. Neither spoke again. Their eyes were fixed on the smouldering coals, which seemed to hypnotize them, and presently they both slept.