Annie Laurie And Azalea

The long red clay road winding down from the cabin where the McBirneys lived on their high shelf of Tennyson mountain was frosted delicately with white and by the roadside the curious frost flowers lifted their heads as airy-fine as fern. From the half-hidden cabins all around the semicircle of mountains that skirted the valley of Lee shafts of smoke arose showing that the people were about the business of the day. Straight gray and shadowy these smoke-shafts lifted through the lilac-tinted air; and below in the little town other shafts of smoke ascended as if in friendly answer. Azalea McBirney in her dark riding skirt and bright knitted cap and reefer came running from the cabin with the manner of a girl very much behindhand.