It was quite evident that Brown was not the name of the people who had called on Azalea, and Patty could not imagine what reason there could be for the girl to tell such a falsehood.

“Is that the right name, Gale?” asked Bill, briefly.

But Raymond Gale only shook his head.

“Miss Thorpe says so,” he replied, “surely she ought to know.”

The subject was dropped and not resumed until after Gale had gone home.

Then Farnsworth asked Azalea who her friends were who had called.

“I told you they were Mr. and Mrs. Brown,” she said, glibly.  “I met them on the train coming from the West, and we got quite well acquainted.”

“But their name is not Brown,” Bill said, quietly, “tell me what it is,—­or, tell me why you don’t want to divulge it.”

“It is Brown,” persisted Azalea, but the way she spoke and the way her eyes fell before Farnsworth’s steady gaze, belied her words.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t believe you,” he said.

“I can’t help that,” she returned, pertly, and ran away to her own room.

“What’s she up to now?” said Patty.

“Part of the queerness,” Bill vouchsafed, and said no more about it.

* * * * *

The next day, Azalea went to her room directly after breakfast, and, locking the door, remained there all the morning.

At luncheon she was quiet, and absent-minded, and as soon as the meal was over she went back to her room.

It was nearly five o’clock, when Patty, puzzled at such actions, tapped at Azalea’s door.

“What’s the matter, dear?” she called, through the closed door, as there was no response to her knock.

“Nothing; let me alone!” came Azalea’s impatient voice.

“Are you ill?  Don’t you feel well?”

“Let me alone.  I’m all right.”  The tone was ungracious, and there was no mistaking the import of her speech, so Patty went away.

At dinner time Azalea appeared.  She wore the same frock she had worn all day, and Patty looked at her in amazement.  Apparently she had been working hard at something.  Her hair was rumpled, her collar awry, and her whole appearance untidy and unpresentable.

“Have you been busy?” Patty said; “couldn’t you get time to dress?”

“Forgot it!” muttered Azalea.  “Sorry.  Shall I go back and dress?”

Patty hesitated.  It would, of course, delay dinner, which was already announced,—­and, too, in Azalea’s present state of pre-occupation, she might fall to work again, and not come to dinner at all.

So Patty said, “No, come as you are,” and she gave Azalea’s hair a touch, and pulled her collar straight.

Farnsworth watched the “queer” girl all through dinner.  Azalea had improved somewhat in manners, though her notions of table etiquette still left much to be desired.

To-night she was unlike herself.  She answered in monosyllables when spoken to, and paid no attention to the conversation of the others.