After her conclusion most of the faces near her were unusually thoughtful until Polly O'Neill, seated next Mrs. Ashton, gave a characteristic laugh followed by a sigh.

"My dear children, if we ever learn to live up to that law of the Camp Fire, then shall we be angels and not girls!" she exclaimed.

And she might have added more had not an imploring frown from Betty silenced her. Of course some of the girls would understand that Polly rarely meant what she said, but there we're other members of the little company with whom Betty wished to take no risks. Besides, Polly's laugh could sometimes dampen even her own enthusiasm! And had she not placed her friend next her mother in order that she might interest Mrs. Ashton in their plan, for Polly was a great favorite with the older woman and never afraid of using her pretty blarney stone with her.

However, except for a laugh no one seemed in the least influenced by Polly's skepticism.

"We can at least try to live up to the law," Mollie replied quietly, answering from her chair a few feet away.

In a few moments, however, Betty no longer feared the effect of her friend's att.i.tude. Perhaps to some of the girls the idea of a summer camp seemed too beautiful to be possible, yet plainly the ideals of the Camp Fire organization, as Miss McMurtry explained them more fully, had fired their imaginations, filling them with new hopes and enthusiasm.

Meg had been listening to what had been said with glowing cheeks, meaning to become a Camp Fire girl even though it was entirely impossible for her to join the summer camp. She was holding her small brother tight in her arms, trying to distract his attention with objects to be seen out the front window, and so entirely oblivious of the fact that the hastily adjusted hairpins had been slipping out of her hair, until one yellow braid now dangled over her pink ear.

Mollie O'Neill's cheeks were also flushed, but she sat perfectly still, keeping her hands clasped tight together in a fashion she had when desiring a thing greatly and not feeling sure she would receive it.

Eleanor Meade had even forgiven Betty for dragging her away from her unfinished painting of the May, sky (a painting which Meg and Betty had a.s.sured her resembled soap suds), so enthralled had she become with the summer plan. If her parents could be persuaded to allow her to stay in camp with the girls during the summer, why then surely she need not be bothered with having to take exercise and help with the housework, as her mother insisted, she could simply give up all her time to her drawing and painting. You see Eleanor, like a good many other girls, did not at once grasp the meaning of the Camp Fire idea.

Apparently only one person in Mrs. Ashton's drawing-room up to this time seemed to have gotten nothing at all out of Miss McMurtry's explanations and the girls' discussion of a Camp Fire club. But then how could she, for Sylvia Wharton apparently had not listened and certainly had never taken her eyes from Polly's face? She appeared a stupid child, short and stout and, although fourteen, hardly seemed more than twelve. Her clothes were expensive but always inappropriate, indeed they were far too handsome for such a plain little girl. However, they were in accord with her father's taste, and although Mr. Wharton was now a wealthy man, he had begun life as a stone-cutter and could hardly be expected to know much about the proper way to dress a small, motherless daughter.

Several times in the past half hour Polly had almost yielded to the inclination to implore Sylvia to take her eyes off her, for the little girl did not look sensitive and her eyes were so large and expressionless they made one uncomfortable, but then Polly forbore, until, as her own interest in their meeting proceeded, she forgot all about her inquisitor.

It must have been about five o'clock when Betty at last arose and holding a curiously wrought silver ring, a bracelet and a pin in her hand, started to walk slowly about among the circle of her guests.

"If you wish to join our Camp Fire club this afternoon," she invited coaxingly, "you are simply to repeat the lines Esther has just recited for us. Then Miss McMurtry says you may each receive a woodgatherers'

ring. Afterwards, when we have acquired sufficient honors in the seven crafts, 'Health Craft, Home Craft, Nature Lore, Camp Craft, Business and Patriotism'," (Betty repeated the list slowly as though not quite certain of herself), "why then we may attain next to the rank of Fire- Makers and wear their bracelets. The highest honor of all, which I for one shall probably never attain, is to become a Torch Bearer and receive the Torch Bearer's pin. It is all right for me to give the girls the rings, isn't it, Miss McMurtry, after they have repeated the law to you?" Betty asked, "since you have been appointed official guardian by the headquarters in New York? Later on I suppose the girls will tell us when they will wish to come into camp."

Miss McMurtry laughed. Never until this afternoon had she had any liking for Betty Ashton. They were such utterly different types of woman and girl! Yet, now Betty's habit of expecting to have her own way, which her teacher so disliked, was a.s.suredly making their Camp Fire plans go ahead with a rush.

"Yes, I am a properly appointed guardian," Miss McMurtry answered slowly, "and Esther and I have been studying the Camp Fire program until she is almost ready to become a Fire-Maker, but I wonder if, you girls wish me to be your guardian in camp this summer? Perhaps I am not suited to it!" She turned to look at Betty, but failing to catch her eye, looked toward Polly. For the same reason both girls kept their heads bowed, until Betty was finally able to reply with as much enthusiasm as she could muster:

"Oh, of course we wish you, and we shall try to give as little trouble as possible." Really in her present enthusiasm Betty believed that she and her science teacher would be able to put away all past differences and live in perfect accord under the influence of their new ideals.

Miss McMurtry now turned again to Esther; there were special reasons for her unusual interest in this girl, although even Esther herself was unaware of them.

"You are wearing your bead chains, aren't you?" the new guardian asked, slipping two narrow strips of leather, one strung with orange and the other with bright red beads, from about Esther's throat. "You see each one of these beads represents some honor a girl has attained in the Camp Fire," she explained, "so the girl who finally arrives at the rank of Torch Bearer, really an a.s.sistant to the guardian, may own seven different chains of bead, one color for each of the seven crafts."

"My honors so far have been won in health and home craft because of what I was taught at the orphan asylum," Esther added frankly and then blushed uncomfortably, for several of Betty's friends were staring at her curiously. What had inspired Mrs. Ashton and Betty, supposed to be the most exclusive persons in Woodford, to introduce this unknown girl into their home as though she were a member of their family?

Moreover, Betty must have suffered another change of heart for she was now engaged in almost forcing a Wood-Gatherer's ring upon the stranger whom she had lately brought home in the automobile with her.

Mrs. Ashton lifted her lorgnettes to gaze at the visitor. "Tell me, Polly dear," she whispered, "who is that girl with whom Betty is now talking? She is not one of her school friends and yet I feel I have seen her somewhere before, though I am not able to place her."

Polly smiled, shaking her head. "You have seen her, I know I have many times, although she is not a friend or even an acquaintance of mine.

But I don't know what has happened to 'The Princess', so I would rather you would put your question to her after we go away."

Mrs. Ashton kept hold of Polly's hand. Two maids had just come into the drawing-room at this moment and were pa.s.sing plates of cake and cups of hot chocolate about among the guests. The greater number of the girls were crowding around Miss McMurtry and Betty, so only d.i.c.k Ashton happened to notice that no one, not even a maid, had come near Esther.

Securing chocolate and cake for her himself, he sat down next her, talking but asking no questions, since he feared to embarra.s.s her as he had earlier in the afternoon.

"Do you think, Polly, that this is really a good plan of Betty's?" Mrs.

Ashton inquired thoughtfully. "She has seemed so restless and dissatisfied lately. Of course I don't understand all this Camp Fire idea seems to mean to her, I suppose I would have to be a girl again to understand thoroughly, but there may be possibilities in it. Even a conventional society woman longs sometimes to get away from her monotonous life, and surely you will find romance and adventure awaiting you in the woods. I have decided I shall not stand in Betty's way, I shall go away this summer and leave you girls to work things out together, then when I return I may be able to discover what miracles have been wrought in you."

"Oh, you will find us entirely reformed," Polly answered carelessly, not realizing that she of all the girls in the room would be the one to bear the ordeal of fire, the symbol that cleanses and purifies.

But both the girl and woman suddenly became silent, for d.i.c.k Ashton had persuaded Esther Clark to the piano and now the entire group of guests closed in about her.

Once again she was singing the morning and evening hymn of the Camp Fire Girls' "My Soul's Desire."

Mrs. Ashton sat listening intently with an odd expression of something almost like relief crossing her face. "Polly dear," she whispered unexpectedly at the close of Esther's song, "perhaps life does even things up more justly than we know, for this strange girl, Esther Clark, has a truly remarkable voice."

CHAPTER VII

WHITE CLOUDS

"White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, Light mists, whose soft embraces keep The sunshine on the bills asleep."

The sun was just rising above the crests of a group of the White Mountains called long ago by the indians "Waumbek" because of their snowy foreheads. But this morning, instead of shining like crystal, the snow at their summits was opal tinted rose, yellow and violet from the early rays of the June sun.

Sunrise Hill, standing in the foreground, seemed to catch an even stronger reflection from the sky, for the colors drained down its sides until they emptied into a small, wooded lake at its base.

On either side this hill the sloping lands were a soft green and the meadows beyond golden with the new summer grain, but only fifty yards away a grove of pine trees made a deep ma.s.s of shade, and with the birds in their branches singing their daily matins, suggested an old cathedral choir.

The singers were evidently indifferent to intruders, for, close by, four white tents were pitched in a square as though a caravan had halted on its travels. But the caravaneers must have been in the place for some days and showed no intention of moving on, for their arrangements had been made with the idea of permanent comfort.

Around each tent a narrow trench several inches deep had been dug to prevent flooding in case of rain, farther off two large bins held all rubbish until such time as it could be conveniently burned. The camp ground was also beautifully clean, not a sc.r.a.p of paper nor a tin can could be seen anywhere, and even the gra.s.s itself had been swept with a novel, but at the same time, a very old-fashioned broom, for a stake tightly bound with a few sprigs of birch rested against one of the tents, plainly--from the evidences about it--the kitchen tent. At a safe distance a camp fire was smoldering, a fire built according to the best scout methods. Two stout stakes driven slantwise in the ground with three logs cut the same length, one on top the other, resting against these stakes. On either side this elevation two logs lay on the ground like fire logs, with a third crossing them in front, and inside this enclosure a bed of ashes still glowed, carefully covered over for the night. On the lake two birch bark canoes were moored to willow stakes, and hanging on a line stretching from a tree to a pole a number of girls' bathing suits flapped and danced in the air, but no human being was yet in sight.

Suddenly there came a ripple of music from one of the pine trees, "Whee- you, whee-you," a small bird with a spotted breast and a cream-buff coat sang to itself and then began a whistling, ringing monotone that for a moment silenced the other bird chorus.

A girl in a dark red dressing gown quietly opened a tent flap.

"There, the morning has come at last, for that is the voice of 'Oopehanka', the thrush. So after a week in the woods I really am beginning to recognize some of the birds and the Indian names for them."

She clapped her hands softly together.

"Oh, Princess, do wake up and let us have a swim before any one else wakens," she whispered imploringly.

Then disappearing inside her tent, she knelt by a bed of hemlock branches covered with soft blue blankets. "Princess," she whispered again.

A sleepy voice answered. "Polly child, please go back to bed, it must be the middle of the night and I ache all over from carrying water and digging trenches. Who could have supposed camping would be such a lot of work!"

"Or such a lot of joy!" Polly laughed. "Ah, Betty, I thought you were yearning to be useful; think of the honor beads you mean to earn! But come now and be useful to me; do let us have a swim together."

Betty was never proof against her friend's pleading. "All right," she agreed, searching about near her bed for her sandals while Polly wrapped a light woolen gown about her, "I don't know whether Miss McMurtry will like our going off by ourselves, but I don't remember her having said we should not, though Camp Fire life does mean doing things together."

The two girls had been talking in the lowest possible tones and were now tiptoeing softly out of their tent, when another voice from another bed interrupted them.

"Betty and Polly, you are sneaks!" Mollie O'Neill exclaimed indignantly.