At the cabin with the other girls the time had not seemed so long to Betty, nearly ten months now since their sailing, but here at home why it seemed that years might have passed. A sudden fear clutched the girl’s heart—would things ever be quite the same again; did life ever repeat itself in exactly the same old way? And yet Betty had no regrets, only pleasure, that she had been the moving spirit in the first organization of the Sunrise Camp Fire club. How much they had learned in their summer and winter together! And though she might count herself as having learned least of all, yet surely she would never be quite so spoiled and selfish as on that May day when she had accidentally discovered Esther Clark singing the Camp Fire hymn in their formerly deserted back room.
When her mother returned she would relieve her by taking the care of the housekeeping upon her own shoulders and certainly she would be able to cut down expenses. Now that her father’s income was so reduced, this would be a great assistance to him, as Mrs. Ashton had no idea of possible household economies. Betty smiled, not in the least mournfully. There was no thought of any real poverty to be grappled with in her mind. She was only considering in what an unexpected fashion she was going to be able to show to her mother and father the benefits of her Camp Fire training, for which she had plead so earnestly not quite a year before.
The young girl was in her own room at the time of these reflections, seated in her own blue rocking chair with her feet tucked up under her and her chin resting in her hand, looking out her open window at the desolate garden, for this April afternoon was just as cold and uninspiring as that other May afternoon, and there was also no fire in her grate, although downstairs a big blaze had been lighted for the expected company.
That Betty had changed in the past year, her parents would be able to see readily. Really she was prettier than ever; from her outdoor life the color in her cheeks was deeper, her lips a more vivid scarlet and the selfish, sometimes discontented lines about her mouth and forehead had wholly disappeared. Now thinking of her parents return, of how she would be able to prove her love for them by greater devotion to her father in his ill-health; that perhaps he would even teach her something of his business cares and responsibilities since Dick would be so long away completing his medical studies, her expression was very thoughtful and charming and her gray eyes unusually serious. Yet the next instant with a gay laugh Betty jumped to her feet.
“My goodness, I must hurry downstairs and see how the drawing room looks!” she exclaimed aloud. “I have been forgetting what an interesting interview we are going to have this afternoon! Dear me, I wonder what the trouble is and why Esther and I should be privileged to attend this romantic meeting? Perhaps there is going to be some kind of marriage contract, arranged in German fashion, and Esther, Rose and I are wanted as witnesses. It matters not just so I am allowed in the secret.” And Betty started running down the hall.
However, before arriving at the front steps a moment’s hesitation overtook her and she paused. The next second she had gone to the end of the passage and stood with her hand on the door-knob of the very room where she had once surprised Esther. But to-day she could hear no sounds of singing on the inside.
“I am going to peep into Esther’s old room; I wonder if she will wish this same one when she comes back to live with us again. Somehow it must affect me like the locked chamber did Bluebeard’s wife; there isn’t the least reason why I should be peering into this empty place to-day.”
The door opened quickly and Betty gave a sudden scream of terror. The room was not unoccupied, some one was kneeling over in a corner by a closed window.
The figure rose slowly to its feet. “I am sorry, Betty, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Really, dear, I didn’t dream of your coming in here.”
It was Esther Clark. In the half light Betty was now able to distinguish her perfectly. Esther’s face was extremely white, there were tears in her large pale blue eyes and her lids were red and swollen. Her big hands worked nervously as they had on that former occasion when Betty had thought her so plain and unattractive looking.
“Oh, it’s you, Esther,” Betty exclaimed in relieved tones. “Gracious, how you startled me! But I thought you were taking your music lesson. What in the world is troubling you, child, and how did you get into this house and upstairs without my knowing?”
“I came in through the kitchen and crept upstairs as quietly as possible, since I wanted to be alone here for a few minutes,” Esther explained. “Will you please leave me for a little while?”
“Do As I Tell You, Princess, Please”“Do As I Tell You, Princess, Please”
“Do As I Tell You, Princess, Please”
“Most certainly not,” returned Betty in her most autocratic tones. “If you have anything on your mind that is worrying you, come on downstairs and tell me what it is. You have a dreadful tiresome fashion, Esther, of just hugging your grievances to yourself, when if you just told outright what they were, there would probably be nothing for you to fret about.” Betty was annoyed and her tone was far more irritable than usual. Nevertheless, Esther crossed the short space between them and taking Betty’s lovely face between her hands kissed her two or three times in succession.
“Do as I tell you, Princess, please,” she spoke in unusual tones of authority. “I will join you downstairs in a very little while, but I must get back my self-control first.”
So there seemed to be nothing left for Betty but obedience, so plainly did Esther appear to know what she wanted. Very slowly the younger girl walked down to the drawing room. “Esther did find it difficult to confide things to people, but usually she was willing to tell them to her,” Betty thought. “Well, perhaps her shyness and reticence came from having been raised in an orphan asylum where no one was really deeply interested in her or her personal affairs. Nothing very serious could have happened, however, since Esther had left school only about an hour before.”
In the drawing room everything was far more cheerful, the fire was burning, the window blinds were drawn up, the grand piano was open and on it rested a vase of white roses. It was perfectly impossible for Betty Ashton to learn to be economical all at once, and with the thought of a possible betrothal in the house that afternoon she had stopped at a florist’s and brought the flowers in with her. Now she could not help feeling a little glow of pride over the beauty of their old drawing room, especially noticeable after the simplicity of the living room at the cabin.
Feeling rather nervous over the idea that Esther might probably be continuing with her crying upstairs and so unable to take part in the coming interview, Betty walked slowly around the great room studying the portraits of her ancestors,—a favorite amusement with her so long as she could remember. They were stern persons most of them. Betty did not believe that she could ever have such strict views of the difference between right and wrong, be so harsh in her judgments as they had been, but then the world had moved on to a wider vision since those days. One of her great, great uncles had assisted in the burning of witches. Betty turned from this self-righteous looking portrait to the picture of the aunt whom she had always believed herself to resemble, the young woman in the white dress with the big picture hat, then the girl smiled at her own vanity. How absurd to think that she could look like any one so lovely! And yet here was the auburn hair, only a shade more golden than her own, big eyes that were blue instead of gray and a kind of proud fashion of tilting her chin. Very probably Betty had always held her own head in this fashion because she had always so wished to be thought like this special great aunt.
“Well, it was a good thing to feel a certain pride of ancestry,” the young girl thought, “in spite of all of Polly’s teasing. Surely the possession of a great name ought to keep one away from littleness or meanness, make one strive to fill an honorable position in the world. If she had not the ability to be a great woman certainly she intended to be a good one. And then the recollection of Esther came to her again. Poor Esther, who had not even a name of her own! For this very reason had she not always been more ambitious for her friend than Esther had seemed for herself? If she had no position, no money and no family, Esther did have a real talent and must make a place for herself some day.”
But there sounded the first ring at the door bell! Let one hope it was not Herr Crippen arriving first, since, with Esther still upstairs, how could she ever hope to keep him entertained until the arrival of the others? But probably the elderly violinist had never seen anything quite so handsome as their drawing room. Betty had the grace to laugh and then blush over her own foolishness, snobbishness Polly might call it. What did she know of Herr Crippen, his past, what he had seen, where he had traveled in the forty-five years or more of his life?
With a smile of welcome and her hand extended Betty then moved forward toward the door to receive her first guest.
However, it only turned out to be Rose Dyer, looking unusually flushed and excited, who kissed Betty rather tremulously and then sat down as though she were out of breath. “I was afraid I would be late,” was her explanation.
An instant later there was another ring at the bell and on this second occasion Miss McMurtry and Herr Crippen entered together.
Betty considered that Miss McMurtry looked a little bit agitated, but not remarkably so, just enough if she were really about to announce her engagement. But Herr Crippen, unhappy man, was this the way that love affected the emotional German temperament? His face, which was ordinarily pale enough, was to-day like chalk, his red hair was moist upon his high forehead and his big hands cold as he shook hands with his hostess.
Then the little company arranged themselves in chairs before the glowing fire and remained perfectly silent. Why on earth didn’t some one speak? It was her own home, and Betty felt that upon herself devolved the duties of a hostess and yet so plainly in the present instance did it seem to be her place to say nothing until her older guests offered some explanation for their presence.
“Where is Esther?” Miss McMurtry finally asked, and feeling grateful at having something to do which permitted even an instant’s escape from the frozen stillness of the room, Betty jumped up, announcing hurriedly:
“I will get her myself; Esther isn’t feeling very well or she would have been down before. She is upstairs in her own room.”
Then before she could get away there was an unmistakable sound of some one approaching and the next moment Esther Clark joined her friends.
She had washed her face and smoothed her hair, but there were still plain traces of recent tears about her and yet no one of the company appeared surprised.
When Betty had taken her place before the fire again Esther sat down on a stool near her and, not seeming to care in the least about the near presence of other people, took one of Betty’s hands in hers as though she were clinging to it for encouragement and support.
“Will you please tell the whole story as slowly and as clearly as you can, Herr Crippen?” Esther then asked. “Miss McMurtry and Miss Dyer both understand about it in a measure, but it will be an entire surprise to Miss Ashton.”
In utter amazement Betty, entirely forgetting her manners, now proceeded to stare from one face to the other of her guests. Was this the way to announce a betrothal, and besides what could Esther know of the relation between her music teacher and their first Camp Fire guardian; had she not been as much mystified as the rest of them?
Herr Crippen, clearing his throat, jumped up from his chair and began striding rapidly up and down the length of the great room, talking so rapidly and under the pressure of such great excitement that Betty had almost to strain her ears to catch the real drift of what he was saying.
“I haf told you before, I haf lived one oder time in Woodford, fourteen, fifteen year ago, but I haf not said for how long I am here nor why I went away,” he began hastily. “I haf a very beautiful wife, an American woman. She was not well and we came here to your Crystal Hill country with our babies that she might recover. But she recovered not; instead she was ill so long a time until at last she wastodt, dead,” he corrected himself, wiping the moisture from his brow with a big pocket handkerchief. “Then I am poor, very poor; I haf spent so much time nursing her and I haf two babies left who must be looked after. I try then to get music pupils, but I haf not much heart, besides are not the babies always there to be kept out of mischief, so where is the time I can work? I must go away, there is noding else and how can I carry the little ones, one under each arm? No, I must leave my children behind.”
Esther’s blue eyes were gazing steadfastly down at the oriental rug at her feet, but Betty’s cheeks were burning with interest and her gray eyes followed the speaker as eagerly as her ears heard him.
“There is a great house here for little ones I am told, an orphans’ home, they call it. Are not my babies orphans, with no mother and a father that has not even food to give them?”
In a flash Betty’s arms were about Esther’s neck and she was drawing her toward her with an affectionate understanding she had rarely ever before shown her.
“You need not explain any more, Herr Crippen, if the others already know,” Betty Ashton interrupted, “for I think I understand what you are intending to tell me. You left your children at our Woodford orphan asylum and Esther is your daughter, so after all these years have passed you come back to find her. It is very, very strange, I can’t quite realize it all yet and here is Esther not looking in the least like a German but inheriting your musical talent, although with her it has taken the form of a wonderful voice.” And Betty stopped talking at last to gaze into the fire, too overcome with the surprising mysteries of life to say anything more for the present.
An apparent relief showed itself in the faces of everybody present. Herr Crippen sat down again and Esther left her place for a chair next his.
“Aren’t we going to have some tea, Betty dear, now our surprise party is over?” Rose Dyer inquired, so that Betty came back to herself with a start and crossing the room rang the bell.
The next instant she paused in front of Esther and her father. It was odd that no one had ever thought of it, but there was a kind of likeness between the man and girl, the same red hair and paleness, the same nervous manner, although Esther was far more attractive looking and had learned a great deal more self-control. This afternoon there was an added dignity about Esther, even a nobility, which showed itself in the quiet poise of her head, in the firm lines about her always handsome mouth.
Looking at her friend, Betty Ashton’s eyes filled suddenly with tears, for in this moment she was feeling a deeper, a sincerer affection for her than at any time since their acquaintance.
“But you won’t be taking Esther away from me, Herr Crippen?” Betty suddenly pleaded. “She has been a kind of foster sister to me for almost a year and I should be so dreadfully lonely here in this big house without her after the closing of our camp. She has already taught me such a number of things, I don’t suppose she can even dream how many! Can’t you just let her live on with me and come and see her whenever you like?” Which question showed that Betty Ashton did not realize that circumstances ever could seriously interfere with her dearest wishes.
But the German violinist, while he held his daughter’s hand clasped tight in his, slowly shook his head. “For a little while, yes,” he agreed, “but after that my Esther she must go away from Woodford. She hastein grossertalent than you her friends who do not understand music can know. She must study much, she must do all that I haf failed to do. I haf a little money, it is enough for the start, after that——”
“But I shall not wish ever to leave Betty or you,” Esther here interrupted quietly. “I am not ambitious; I can learn all I shall need to know to earn my living here in Woodford.”
It was hardly the time for argument, as each member of the little company realized, and fortunately at this moment the tea tray made its arrival so that Betty and Esther were both busy in supplying the wants of their few guests. However, when Betty had secured her own cup of tea she brought up a tiny table and placed it between the German professor and herself. There had not been much time for thought, but in a vague way Betty felt that she wanted to make reparation both to her friend and Herr Crippen for any foolish joking which she had done at the man’s expense. Really he was not so bad, now one realized how many misfortunes he had passed through, although he could not have had much strength of character or he would never have let anything persuade him to desert his children.
“You will go with Esther when she has to leave Woodford?” Betty inquired softly, not wishing that any one else should overhear. “Of course when the time comes it wouldn’t be fair for me to stand in her way no matter how much we care for one another, but Esther would be far too timid to go alone.”
Herr Crippen shook his head violently. “I cannot leaf this neighborhood, nothing can make me until I haf accomplished all my purpose, no objectings, no arguments.” He spoke with such anger that Betty stared in a complete state of mystification. Herr Crippen’s voice was not lowered; he gazed with apparent fierceness at Miss McMurtry, whom Betty had supposed until very recently to be the object of his ardent affections.
“I tell you I leaf behind two childrens,” he went on, “the one I haf found, the other the superintendent at the asylum, my friends, no one will tell me where mine oder child is. Adopted they tell me, taken away from here, I haf no more a legal right, I should only make unhappiness should I demand my little baby back again.”
“You promised me you would not talk of this, father,” Esther began in a pleading tone, “you promised me that if I would forget all your past neglect you would find your happiness in me.”
But Betty had risen to her feet and stood frowning with unconscious earnestness at the tall man.
“If your son has been adopted by people who love him and whom he loves and thinks are his parents, then I don’t think you have the least right to interfere, Herr Crippen. You went away and left him when he was a little baby to almost any kind of fate. Now you expect him to give up everything and everybody and come back to you, a perfect stranger. I am sure if I were in his place, I should love my adopted parents whom I had always believed to be my own far better than I could ever care for you.”
The big German dropped his head on his chest. Rose and Miss McMurtry got up quickly,
“Come, girls, we must be getting back home to the cabin or the other girls will believe we are lost. Run away, Betty, you and Esther, and get your coats and hats.”
But when the five people were leaving the big house together, Betty waited behind for a moment. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings about your son, Herr Professor,” she apologized. “I—I didn’t intend to be rude, and I should think just finding a wonderful daughter like Esther might make one happy enough.”
Herr Crippen opened his mouth intending to say something but evidently changed his mind as to what it should be. “You are very good, little lady, whom I haf heard your friends call Princess, and I haf no doubt that what you before said to me is most true.”
Several days later Dick Ashton, walking out to the Sunrise cabin from Woodford, unexpectedly caught up with Esther making the same journey. He came up to her side very quickly and with one look in his face the girl gave a cry of dismay. Dick was always serious and yet in spite of his seriousness there was no one with a keener appreciation of humorous situations and people, but to-day his face was drawn and there was a set look about his lips.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Esther,” Dick said quietly, “but I am very glad it is you I have met rather than any one of the other girls. I have bad news for Betty.”
Did Esther’s face for a fleeting instant show surprise and almost alarm?
“It has nothing to do with me, has it?” she asked, but Dick, shaking his head and hardly heeding her question, went on:
“I have just received news of my father’s death and must break it to Betty. It is going to be very hard; Betty has never known anything but happiness and in spite of—in spite of everything, I believe my father loved her almost better than either my mother or me.”
After her first exclamation of sympathy Esther continued silent, feeling it wiser to let Dick talk himself out to a sympathetic listener than to pour forth her own regrets.
“It isn’t only the loss of my father that Betty and mother will have to endure,” he continued, “but the entire loss of my father’s fortune. The trouble has been brewing for some time, but a few weeks ago the crash came and it must have hastened the end.”
“You don’t mean to say they will have nothing?” Esther inquired in a frightened voice. The thought of Betty, whom her friends had always called “Princess” because of her careless generosity, her indifference, her absolute ignorance of the whole money question, now to face poverty without any training or preparation for it,—the thought fairly made Esther gasp, and Dick who had some idea of what was passing in her mind added:
“Yes, it is pretty rough to bring a girl up to live like a Princess and then suddenly to leave her a pauper. I have always been afraid we have not been quite fair with Betty, maybe it would have been easier for her to have known the truth about things from the beginning. Still it can’t be helped now. But the worst of it is that I know nothing about business either; I have never cared for anything but my profession and it takes a long time for a man to be able to support even himself in medicine until he has had several years of experience at least. I must give it up.”
Dick’s face went whiter than ever at this and Esther, who in spite of a certain shyness and nervousness when she found herself the center of observation, had a really good judgment and self-control, now replied quietly: “I wouldn’t think too much of this now, Mr. Ashton, things are pretty sure to turn out a little better than you feel they can at present and in any case I am sure something will be arranged so that you can go on with your profession. It would be too great a pity, when you have studied so long and are now so near your graduation, to have to give it up.”
Dick Ashton looked at Esther gratefully, thinking of how their positions had been reversed in a little less than a year. Had he not, when first he came upon the shy, homely girl among his sister’s group of friends, done his best to make her more comfortable, less of a stranger and an outsider, and now he felt strangely strengthened and calmed by her presence and advice. He too saw that there were times when Esther’s self-forgetfulness gave her a kind of beauty which was more important than mere lines and color, since it was a beauty that would last far longer.
So the young people walked on for a little time in silence, until Dick Ashton colored and then hesitated.
“I hope you won’t think me rude, Miss Esther, that in my own trouble I have forgotten to congratulate you on having found your father. Betty has written me all about it and I certainly hope it may add to your happiness. I used to wonder even when I was a little boy if you felt very lonely at the asylum without a—a single relative.”
“You wondered about me; then you knew aboutme?” Esther asked quietly, and turned, stopping short in the path to give Dick Ashton a long, quiet look. Something passed between them without words, one of those subtle and silent communications of thought for which there has been no satisfactory explanation. Yet in the instant each one of them knew that the other had guessed his and her secret, or if not quite guessing it, at least had very reasonable foundations for their suspicion.
Dick’s formerly pale face crimsoned and he looked down at the ground, beginning to walk slowly on. “We—we thought it best this way, Miss Esther, and still think so. It has been hard upon you perhaps, but isn’t it better that one person should suffer than that a number should be made unhappy?” There was almost entreaty in Dick Ashton’s voice and at the same time he meant to make no betrayal if Esther did not know what he supposed she might possibly have learned within the past few weeks.
Esther’s reply left no room for doubt. “It is best this way now,” she answered slowly. “I can’t say that I think it altogether fair or just at the beginning. But so far as I am concerned, why you need never worry.”
“I wish there were some way in which we could make it up to you, but we have nothing now to be of any assistance to anybody. It is what my mother meant in a measure when——”
Esther nodded. “I understand and there is no need of talking about repaying me. Betty has already done more than that and there is nothing in the world I would not do or give up for her sake. I care for her more than she may ever know.”
His companion’s voice trembled so that Dick feared she might be losing her self-control and knew that they had a hard enough task before them.
They were not very far from Sunrise cabin now and feared that at any moment Betty Ashton might come out to meet them, since Dick had telegraphed that he was coming to see her on important business in order that she might be a little bit prepared for what was to follow.
“It is a pretty dark road for all of us just now, Miss Esther, but some day perhaps without our having to make the decision things will right themselvessomehow,” he returned kindly.
And at this instant the young man and girl discovered Betty flying along the path in their direction. It was a fairly warm April afternoon and she wore her blue cape, the cape which Esther remembered so well during the spring of her own coming to the big Ashton house. She had on no hat and her hair was tied back in a loose bunch of red-brown curls.
Evidently Betty had suspected no trouble from Dick’s telegram (Betty and trouble were so far apart these days), for she laughed and waved both hands in joyous welcome at her brother’s approach.
“Where did you two people find one another? I believe it was all arranged beforehand and Dick Ashton’s visits to our cabin are quite as much to see Miss Esther Clark—Crippen I meant to say—as they are to see poor little me.” Betty had always enjoyed teasing Esther and now she expected this silly remark of hers to make her friend blush and scold, but Esther seemed not to have paid the least attention, not even to have heard her. And in the same instant Betty guessed that something serious had occurred.
Her expression changed instantly. Betty looked suddenly older and unlike any one had ever seen her look before.
She took her brother’s hand. “Never mind, Dick, I think I know already,” she whispered, and unexpectedly it seemed to be Dick who was having to be upheld and consoled.
Esther slipped silently away, leaving the brother and sister together in their sorrow, and somehow in her loneliness she felt almost envious of them in the closeness of their grief.
“For my part,” announced Polly O’Neill, “I am not so heart-broken as I expected at having to say farewell to Sunrise cabin. It is so different for us all, with the Princess not here and having to think of her back home in their big house with only her mother and one little maid of all work. To think that I used to tell the Princess I thought she ought to be poor a little while just to find out what it felt like! I could cry my eyes out now when I realize that it has actually come true.”
It was the May meeting of the Sunrise Council Fire and because it was to be the last meeting for some time which might be held on their old camping grounds, the girls and their guardian had decided that it should take place outdoors and that at the close of their regular program there should be, a general talk over the history of the past year.
Esther rose quietly at this speech of Polly’s, partly because she seemed to wish to find relief in action and then because the May night was cold, and put several fresh pine logs on their already glowing fire.
“You must not think I am ungrateful, Rose dear,” Polly continued. “This winter has been to me the most wonderful one, sometimes I think the turning point in my whole life, but if Betty is going to be trying to take boarders in that big Ashton house to support herself and her mother and let Dick finish his medical studies, why I think Mollie and mother and I had better be back in our own tiny cottage to give her our valuable advice.”
“But Betty won’t be keeping boarders herself, will she? I thought it was Mrs. Ashton who was to look after things with Betty to help,” Nan Graham spoke in a kind of awed tone. “Still it wouldn’t seem very nice of us to keep on living here in our cabin, which Betty did a great deal more toward building than the rest of us, if she were not here to share it.”
Mollie shook her head decidedly, so that the feathers of her Indian head-dress made fantastic small shadows on the ground. “I don’t think that would matter in the least and certainly not to Betty,” she said in her sensible, far-seeing fashion. “Betty would love to think of our being here and she would come and visit us whenever it were possible, but circumstances seem to have changed for all of us. Here is mother coming home from Ireland and Polly and I will want to keep house for her and look after things while she is at work just as we have always done, and then Mrs. Meade says she isn’t willing for Eleanor to be away from her any longer, and Nan feels she ought to go home and help her mother with the younger children, and Esther going away after a while to New York to study. Dear me, what changes a few months can bring! I am glad they have not brought such big ones to us, Polly.”
Sylvia Wharton had been in the act of wrapping a white woolen shawl about the small Faith, who was cuddled close to Rose Dyer, but now she stopped and stared hard at Mollie and then at Polly with an apparently wooden expression of face.
“What makes you feel things won’t be different for you and that your mother will go back to work?” she stammered, feeling their guardian give a little warning tug at her dress but unable to change the form of her question once it had taken a start in that way in her mind.
However, both the sisters only laughed, Polly exclaiming in an amused tone: “Of course we don’t know anything definitely, oh Sylvia, in this world of surprises, but merely that present indications point the way Mollie has just mentioned.” Fortunately, Polly, who was usually quick as a flash to follow up any suggestion, had her mind on other than her own affairs to-night.
“Esther,” she continued the next moment, “this is a kind of confessional to-night, or at least it may be if we girls decide that we are willing to confide in one another (autobiography is so much more interesting than history anyhow), so I wonder if you would mind telling us why you changed your mind so suddenly about going away from Woodford to study. At first you said nothing in the world would persuade you to go and then all of a sudden, after Betty’s misfortune, when it looked as though you might be a help to her, you determined to leave. Don’t answer me if you don’t like, Esther, I know you have a perfectly good reason. Of courseIchange my mind without a reason, but you don’t.”
Esther now felt that the eyes of all the members of the Camp Fire circle were fixed upon her and that many of them held the same question that Polly had just so frankly asked.
For a moment she hesitated, looking a little appealingly at Miss McMurtry and then at Rose Dyer. Rose nodded her head.
“I would tell just what I felt, Esther, as far as you can,” Rose recommended. “It is only fair to you that Betty’s dearest friends should understand your position, even though you would rather that Betty herself should not know. I feel you can trust them to keep your secret.”
Esther wound the seven strings of honor beads into a single chain before she spoke. “It sounds rather absurd of me and pretentious I know,” she began slowly; “of course I have a great many reasons in my mind why I feel it best for me to go away from Woodford right now and the most important one I cannot tell, but there is another which perhaps I have the right to let you try to understand. I am not deserting Betty just when she seems to need me most; it is because Betty now is poor and some day I may be able to help her if I do go away and succeed with my music that I am willing to go. You see Betty has done such a lot for me and has wanted to do so much more and—and—” Esther could not continue with her confession, but it was hardly necessary, for rising from her place Polly marched solemnly around their circle and sitting down by Esther put her arm about her neck.
“I understand you perfectly now, Esther, though I want you to believe that no one of us has ever doubted you. You are too unselfish and too unworldly to care to make a big success in the world with your talent if it is only for yourself, but the thought that maybe you can some day bring back wealth and happiness again to the Princess makes most any effort worth while?”
Esther bowed her head, too full of emotion to answer Polly’s question in words.
“I supposed I cared for Betty a lot, I have known her so much longer than you have,” Polly went on thoughtfully, “but I don’t half love her as you do, Esther, even in this little while. I suppose it is because you haven’t any relatives of your own and your father is still so new to you. But didn’t you have a baby brother or some one long years ago——?”
Polly’s remark was never finished because Miss Dyer now got up quickly. Because the evenings were so cool the May Council Fire had started early and though it was well nigh over, there was still a faint reflection of daylight.
“I thought I heard the wheels of a wagon several moments ago,” she explained, “and now I think I can see Dr. Barton’s buggy being driven this way. I wonder what in the world he can want with us at this time of the evening? Polly, will you come back to the cabin with me to see.”
The Council Fire was being held at no great distance from the Sunrise cabin, but perhaps it was Rose Dyer’s purpose at this moment to separate Polly and Esther.
Of course Polly followed with entire willingness, but a few feet from their door, seeing Dr. Barton’s buggy draw nearer and that it held two occupants instead of one, her face crimsoned and she bit her lips to control her vexation. She was returning to join the girls when Dr. Barton’s voice called after her: “Don’t go away, Miss O’Neill, please, our call is upon your sister and you. I was driving through the woods and found Mr. Webster with a telegram which had been telephoned to the farm and which he was bringing out to you and I offered to give him a lift.”
Although neither of the two young men had received any invitation to alight, they both got out of the buggy and both wearing somewhat crestfallen expressions, stood gazing at the two young women.
“I will call Mollie,” Polly declared stiffly, drawing back from Billy’s hand which held a square of paper in it.
“You need not speak to me, Miss O’Neill, simply because I happen to be your messenger boy,” the young man said as haughtily as Polly could have spoken. “And you need not feel any contamination at accepting this message from me. The telegram was telephoned out to our farm and my mother wrote it down, so I haven’t the faintest idea what the paper contains.”
Without showing any further signs of recognizing the speaker, Polly reached for the paper, but the next instant her frightened cry for Mollie brought her sister, Sylvia Wharton, and half a dozen other persons to her side. “I must have read it wrong, it is so dark, or your mother must have made some mistake!” Polly cried, forgetting her policy of silence in her agitation. And then standing with a white face and clenched teeth she watched Mollie read the message.
Mollie did not betray any great grief or anger, only a considerable amount of surprise, so that Polly for an instant believed her own eyes must have deceived her.
“Why, I can’t quite understand it,” Mollie said aloud, seeing the puzzled group of faces around her. “Mother telegraphs that she and Mr. Wharton, Sylvia’s father, have been engaged to be married for the past few months and that she was coming home to tell us about it and to ask us if we were willing, but something has happened or else Mr. Wharton has just persuaded her, for they are married already and are sailing for home to-morrow. Mother says she is very happy and hopes we will forgive her and be almost as overjoyed as she is in coming home to us. At least that is what I think the cablegram means. Billy was mistaken in thinking it a telegram. How do you feel, Polly dear? I am too dazed to take it all in.”
“I feel,” said Polly, with a return to her old passionate, uncontrolled manner, “that I shall never be happy again as long as I live.” And then observing a slow, hurt look in Sylvia Wharton’s usually unmoved face, she turned for an instant toward her. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Sylvia, or to say anything against your father, but it just isn’t possible for you to understand what this means to me.” And with this thoroughly Polly-like point of view she ran away and hid herself inside the cabin.
Billy Webster walked off with Mollie and the other Camp Fire girls to talk things over, giving Dr. Barton a chance to linger for a few moments with Rose Dyer.
“I don’t know why you seem so offended with me these days, Miss Rose,” that young man was soon saying in rather an humble voice for so stern and upright a judge of other people’s duties, “but may I say that I think your work among the Camp Fire girls this winter has been quite wonderful and that I never dreamed you could or would be interested in anything outside of society? Oh, Rose——”
“Rose of the World,” Rose Dyer finished in a slightly mocking tone, which did not show whether or not she had forgiven the young man’s former opinion of her.
However, hewasobstinate and so would not be interrupted. “Oh, Rose of a Thousand Leaves,” he ended for himself.
“It was Sylvia who really arranged things for me,” Polly explained confidentially.
The girls were in Betty Ashton’s own blue room, having said good-bye to Sunrise cabin and turned their backs upon it for a time at least. But the cabin had been left ready to receive its owners at any time when they might be able to come back to it and week-end parties and Council Fire meetings were often to take place there, besides more important events which the girls could not well anticipate now.
But to-day was Betty Ashton’s birthday and although she was in too deep mourning for any kind of gayety, her Camp Fire friends had planned to stop by her house during the afternoon to leave little gifts for her, along with their best wishes. And Mollie and Polly O’Neill had arrived first.
“I shall miss you terribly, Polly,” Betty returned wistfully; her bright color had gone in the last few weeks and there were slight shadows under her gray eyes. “Still I feel sure that under the circumstances it is best for you to go. You are too restless anyhow to have wanted to stay in Woodford and the new life with the new people and sights will make you much happier. You will probably have a good deal of liberty at a New York boarding school and you’ll be able to go to the theater now and then and do many of the things you will like. But Mollie and I hope you will come back for Christmas and will write us pretty often.”
Polly looked thoughtfully from her friend to her sister. “I know I am an absolutely selfish person and I would rather neither one of you would even attempt to deny it. I am not leaving my home though simply because I am restless. The truth is I simply can’t get used to mother’s being married to Mr. Wharton and to living in their great ugly house instead of our own beloved cottage. I don’t like Frank Wharton and though Mr. Wharton is very kind and wants to do everything for Mollie and me, he is one of those dreadfully literal persons, so I am afraid we never will understand one another.”