"Don't get homesick," Pell called out. "We have a few more days to go before time to break camp and you want to be in at the big party, don't you?"

"I think the prince part simply the most marvelous story I have ever heard," said Treble, under her breath. It was too early to join in a general wake-up.

"Leave it to Alma," whispered Laddie. "I always said these quiet little girls have the most fun. I heard Wyn groaning in her sleep after every one else was aslumber. That's the kind of fun _she_ has."

"Looks as if Nora had not walked in _her_ sleep, at any rate," put in Betta. "I move we get up and slick things up early. How do we know but the myth flew away in the night?"

"We don't, but she didn't," replied Treble crisply. "But hark to a familiar sound. It calls arise----"

Then began the duties, and in spite of their anxiety to get over to the Nest, the Scouts did succeed in performing their tasks with the usual accuracy and unusual alacrity.

At nine o'clock they were free.

No need to ask what anyone was going to do that morning. Every Girl Scout who had been in "the raid" was ready to run before the day's orders had been read from the bulletin.

They headed for the Mantons' cottage.

"Did you ever?"

"No, I never!"

This was a part of the meaningless contribution in words offered as the girls came up to the Nest. They had seen the tableau on the front porch.

"h.e.l.lo!" called out Nora.

"'Lo, yourself," sang back Thistle.

"Too early for a fashionable call?" asked Treble.

"Come along, girls," Mrs. Manton welcomed them. "I am sure Nora has been anxiously waiting for you. I'll let her tell you the news," she finished, indicating the chairs for the party.

Lucia was in a big steamer chair. It almost swallowed up the tiny figure, but she had a way of reclining, quite gracefully.

"How are you today, Lucia?" asked Alma.

"Oh, I'm all right," replied the child, pinking through her dark skin.

She looked very pretty in one of Nora's bright rose dresses, with the same color hair ribbon, and her feet encased in a pair of white slippers. No wonder she was "all right."

"She's going to stay," said Nora proudly. "We've adopted her."

"Quick work," remarked Laddie. "But I don't blame you. She looks as if she grew right here in this lovely big wild wood. Don't you like it, Lucia?"

"Lots, much," said the child.

"We found out all about it, of course," continued Nora. "Lucia won't mind if I tell you?" she questioned.

"No," said the stranger. The single word indicated her timidity.

"You see, she is the daughter of Vita's daughter who died last year,"

Nora explained. "She has been living with cousins, and the man Nick, of whom she was so frightened, is the cousin's husband."

Lucia now seemed to shrink back, and at that sign Nora signaled the girls to leave the porch and adjourn to more convenient quarters for their confidences.

Once away from the restriction, words flew back and forth in questions and answers, until Wyn wanted to know if it was all a duet between Alma and Nora, or could they make it a chorus?

"And he didn't beat her?" demanded Pell.

"And she is really related to Vita, not kidnapped?" asked Betta.

"You didn't find her all bruised up----"

"Now girls," scoffed Nora. "I know perfectly well you don't think anything of the kind. You all know Vita was always kind and generous----"

"Whew!" whistled Wyn. "How we can change! I thought she was a regular bear this time yesterday morning."

"I think your cousins are perfectly splendid," said Betta, sensibly. "Is she really going to adopt the child?"

"We had a doctor this morning," said Nora with an important air, "and he advised change of scene----"

"Let's take her over to Chickadee!" interrupted Thistle. "That would be a distinct and decided change."

"Oh, hush," begged Alma. "What else did the doctor say, Nora?"

"She is hysterical--all came from the fright of her mother's sudden death," continued Nora. "But girls, I don't know how much to thank you,"

she broke off. "Being a Scout has done much for me."

"We believe you," said Wyn in her usual bantering way. "But say, little girl, are you going back to that school where they teach you to wear silk underwear in the cold, blasty winter weather? Couldn't you make out to get adopted at the Nest yourself?"

A laugh, then a set of laughs, followed this.

"You are coming over to camp tonight, remember," said Alma, seriously.

"We have not initiated you yet, you know."

"How about that first formal ducking, with Jimbsy in the background?"

Pell reminded them. "That seemed all right for an initiation."

Mrs. Manton was coming down the path with the inevitable letter. Was there ever a story finished without "a letter"? Mr. Jerry followed up.

It was, as you have guessed, from Nora's mother, and she did grant permission for her to stay.

"So," said Mrs. Teddy Manton, otherwise Theodora, while the real Jerry looked over her shoulder at the letter, and Cap sniffed approvingly at Nora's khaki skirt, "we expect to have Nora go to school in town this winter, and perhaps next summer we will all be back again at Rocky Ledge."

"This was a real vacation," sighed Nora, "the best I ever had."

"Three cheers!" yelled the Scouts; and Lucia from her porch was truly sorry she had ever called those girls "crazy."

It was all so comfortable and safe now. Even her "bad fit" was gone with the winds, and how lovely to be out in the sunlight and have nothing to fear!