“Good-bye, boy,” she called.
“So long, sis,” he answered, and turned to follow the creek, and then to mount the hill at the top of which stood the district school. But Azalea kept on along the low-winding road till she came to The Shoals, from whose four tall chimneys the smoke mounted into the tinted air. Benjamin, the polite black boy, was at the horse-block to help her dismount and to lead away Paprika, her pony; and Tulula Darthula, the maid, opened the door to welcome her. Azalea spoke a laughing word of greeting and ran on down the corridor to the schoolroom.
It was a small room, semicircular in shape, opening on the wintry garden. The rounding portion of the wall was all of glass, which in summer time gave way to screens, so that it then seemed an actual part of the garden. Now, the polished panes reflected the flames leaping in the fireplace, and revealed the frost-fringed hemlocks without. Before the fire sat Miss Parkhurst, the quiet, gray-eyed governess, and with her, Carin, the friend whose approval was more to Azalea than anything else in the world save the love of the new “mother.”
“Oh, here I am, late!” cried Azalea contritely. “Please forgive me, ma’am.”
Helena Parkhurst gave a pardoning smile.
“I really think we’re ahead of time this morning—Carin and I. Take off your things, child, and come up to the fire. We’ve been trying to have it at its best when you came.”
But Azalea’s fingers, stiffened with holding the bridle reins, made sorry work with her buttons, and Carin flew to her aid.
“You smell like winter, Azalea,” she laughed, sniffing; “all cold and clean.”
Azalea laughed happily. Whatever this blue-eyed, golden-haired friend of hers did seemed right to her—nay, better than merely right—complete. It warmed Azalea more than the glow of the room to have Carin snatch her cap from her, and pull her reefer off, and tumble her with affectionate roughness into the chair before the blaze.
“Colonial history again this morning,” said Miss Parkhurst after a time. “We’re to read about the Delaware and the Virginia Colonies, since Carin’s ancestors came from the first and Azalea’s from the second.”