"Here!" yelled Thistle, quite uncorporal like, "The very first one that speaks will be dumped into the lake. Proceed Alma."

From that point things went along better. Again Alma looked promising.

"As I said, the letter is a confession." Then ignoring a number of subdued interruptions, she went on. "It is signed 'Your loving prince.'"

Could you blame them for howling?

"Your loving--prince!!!!" repeated Wynnie. "And is there a Jimbsy to that?"

"I told you," said the offended Alma, "the only thing Jimmie had to do with it was to deliver it."

"So far as you know," interjected Doro, "But Jimmie is a far-sighted lad."

"Let me read it, Alma," said Thistle in desperation. "I can't see why some girls can't have more manners."

"And why some can't have some?" retaliated Treble.

"Once more, shall I read it?" asked Alma, sighing.

"You shall," declared Betta. "The first one that interrupts---- Oh, I say girls, it is almost time for drill. Have some sense and let's hear it."

Murmurs approved.

"'I feel constrained to write this, dear,'" Alma actually read, "'because I feel I have done you a great injustice.'" (Moans.)

"'After you saw me and I fleed----'" Alma paused. "He means flew, of course."

This started another outburst, and what he didn't mean by "fleed" simply wasn't worth meaning.

"Go ahead, Alma, we know he--fleed," prompted Betta.

"'After I ran'" (prudent Alma), "'I never had the courage to make myself known to you,'" she perused. "'But when I heard your companions taunt you----'"

"There! Taunting her! I told you to be good----" Wyn's interruption was inevitable.

"It is no use in my trying to be sociable," said the sensitive Alma.

"But I thought you would all be interested."

"There is not much more to read," announced the popular member. "He just says that soon--soon he will come."

"Oh, joy!" shouted Doro, rolling over in the gra.s.s. "Let me know in time!"

"They're just idiots, Alma. Come on with me and leave them to guess the rest," proposed the astute Betta, the confidante of girls. "_I_ want to hear it if n.o.body else does."

Without even a giggle they jumped up and seized Alma. One could not be sure whose arm was most restraining, but she changed her mind about going with Betta. Instead she opened the famed sheet again and read:

"'My conscience has troubled me ever since, dear, but I was forced to do as I did. Drop your answer----'" She paused. "I don't intend to read that part," she calmly announced, and no amount of coaxing would induce her to relent. No one should know where the letter to the prince was to be mailed, Alma was determined on that point at least.

CHAPTER XIX

A DESERTED TRYST

Nora was disconsolate. For two days the dainties left for Lucia had remained untouched. The bread box which Vita had given her to play with, and into which the food was deposited for Lucia, stood upon the tree stump with the sliced lamb, the piece of cake, and the big orange which comprised the last installment offered by the sympathetic Nora, just as she had left it.

"Can anything have happened to her?" Nora asked herself. She was almost too disappointed to sit down and rest in the cool, quiet shade. Cap sniffed the box but did not put a paw up to beg, and even the big noisy blue-jay scorned a few crumbs that lay on a fallen leaf.

"Suppose he--murdered her!"

It was not unusual for a girl like Nora to think the very worst first, in fact the normal, childish mind is very apt to leap at a sensation, but only the high spot is sensed, the detail is always conspicuously lacking.

"Of course she is deadly sick. Oh, why didn't she let me know where she lived," Nora wailed secretly. "I could visit her and bring her all sorts of lovely things----"

She lifted the paper napkin that covered the food offering.

"What's this?" she exclaimed. A stiff little green leaf made of very shiny paper appeared, and with it, Nora found, was an old fashioned nose-gay, the sort beloved by the Italians and the Polish peasantry.

Nora picked up the spray. It was tied with a green ribbon and somehow gave Nora a distinct shock.

"Oh! She's dead, this is what they--have at funerals!"

Tears welled up into the blue eyes, and hands holding the silent message trembled. Nora sat down and Cap nosed up to her; he knew something was the matter.

Such a pathetic little bouquet! One stiff pink rose, one yellow daisy, two bright red carnations and three very stiff green leaves, all made of a sort of oil-cloth paper.

A tear fell into the heart of the rose. If it were not really a flower it was at least a good picture of one, just as a photograph can so vividly remind one of the original.

Nora went back to the box. "When can she have put it here?" she wondered. It was under the paper plate.

Then she recalled that this last donation had been hastily deposited in the box, for it was late and Nora had to hurry back to get ready for her own tea at the time she placed it there.

"I must have it put right on her flowers," she pondered. "Poor, abused, little Lucia!"

Picking up the untouched food Nora discovered a slip of soiled paper beneath it. There was writing on it, a scrawl of some kind. She carried it to the light out from under the dense trees.

"Yes, it's a note," murmured Nora, as if Cap, her only companion, understood. And it just says "'Goodbye, with love.'"

Nora read and reread the scribble. It was written, she decided, in Lucia's hand, for it was such a crooked, uneven scrawl. The paper was a leaf torn from a book, and this a.s.sured Nora that at some time Lucia must have gone to school.

"After all my joy, the party, the enrollment and everything, this has to come," thought the discouraged girl. "I hoped today I could induce her to come over and see Ted and Jerry."

It was too disappointing. For the first few days Nora had felt it was safer to allow Lucia to have her way, and when she waited and waited, until the Italian girl appeared, then coaxed and urged that she come over to the cottage, Lucia showed signs of real fright. She would have run from the tree-tent and never returned, if Nora had not promised to agree to her secrecy. After that the benefactor brought the food but was never able to get more than a fleeting glimpse of Lucia, as she scurried off like a little black rabbit with her precious food and her strange secret. And now she was really gone and had said goodbye.

"Why didn't I tell Alma?" sighed Nora, regretfully. "She might have known a better way to have helped her."

Too late to reason thus, Nora with a heavy heart again covered the tin box, hoping something would bring Lucia back; then she took the quaint floral token and started for the Nest.