“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.”
“It’s queer, isn’t it?” said Azalea softly. “It’s very queer. I know this: I’ll have you for my kin as long as I live. You see I’ve no real kin, so we’ll be pretend kin.”