The Camp Fire Girls by the Blue Lagoon. Vandercook Margaret

head.

      "No, Bettina, I could not have told you, since I had no idea the girls were in New York. You see, they have never before been to see me or let me hear where they were. Have you been in town long?"

      There was a short, uncomfortable silence.

      "About a month; but please let me explain," Alice Ashton said, seeing that the other girls were waiting for her to assume the responsibility of a reply. "I realize this must seem strange to you, and I grant you it does look odd, as if we had lost all our affection and gratitude. And yet you can not believe this of us!"

      "I have made no accusation," the Camp Fire guardian returned, yet in her tone and manner there was an unconscious accusation, which made it difficult for Alice to continue.

      "I am afraid you are wounded, Tante; I am sorry," she added awkwardly and paused.

      Guardian of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls for a number of years, Mrs. Richard Burton, whose professional name was Polly O'Neill Burton, had given up her career on the stage and traveled with the Camp Fire girls in the west. Later when the great war turned the world upside down she had gone with them to Europe accompanied by a wealthy and eccentric spinster, Miss Patricia Lord. After two years in France and a summer in England they had come back to their own country and on account of the Camp Fire guardian's health had spent the preceding winter in the Adirondacks.1

      With the close of the winter Mrs. Burton had returned to the stage and the Camp Fire girls to their homes. There had been no meeting between them until to-day.

      "Tante" was the title which the greater number of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls used in speaking to their guardian.

      "Please don't behave as if you were too wounded to be angry," Sally Ashton remonstrated, moving closer to the older woman and slipping an arm about her. "And please remember that it is a good deal more of a trial for your Camp Fire girls to have been separated from you for all these months than for you to have had a brief rest from their society. Some of us at least realize that you have given too much of yourself to us for the last few years when a so much larger public needed you. I can't tell you how proud I am of your latest success. I have read dozen of notices in the papers and the critics all say that you are more wonderful than ever."

      Mrs. Burton smiled.

      "You are very complimentary, Sally dear, and of course I am immensely flattered. Nevertheless this does not explain why you girls have never come near me for a month, or taken the trouble to write or telephone. This would not have interfered seriously with the holiday which you seem to feel I have required."

      Rising, Alice Ashton came over and stood before her guardian, her expression unusually gentle and affectionate. Ordinarily Alice was not tactful, although sincerity and a fine sense of honor were her ruling characteristics.

      "See here, Tante, we are in an uncomfortable position and there is nothing to do save tell you the entire story and let you judge. You will say frankly whether you think we have been right or wrong. I feel sure that Sally and Vera have felt as I do, when I say there has scarcely been a day since our arrival in New York when we have not thought of you and longed to see you. We have been to your play several times."

      "Why avoid me, dear? What can it be that you find so difficult to say? I prefer to know."

      "Even if the reason will trouble you more than the fact? The truth is that Aunt Patricia would not agree to have us see you."

      "So Aunt Patricia's influence is stronger than your feeling for me! Perhaps that is as it should be, but I can not altogether recognize what I have done which makes Aunt Patricia not only refuse to have anything to do with me herself, but wish to separate you Camp Fire girls from me as well. I suppose she fears I may affect you with the ingratitude and obstinacy I possess. As long as you were so compliant with Aunt Patricia's wish, Alice, why did you change? Aunt Patricia has not changed!"

      "You are angry and hurt and I don't know how to go on," Alice returned, her gray blue eyes darkening, a flush coming into her cheeks.

      "Then don't try, Alice," Sally interrupted. "Tante, please be sensible and don't make a tragedy over a situation that is uncomfortable enough for us all, goodness knows! I have no gift of words but at least I can speak plainly. Alice and Vera both feel under obligation to Aunt Patricia because she is paying their expenses in New York this winter. I have not been here so long as they have, in fact I only arrived a few days ago. Aunt Patricia has rented a lovely little apartment for us and is being generous as only she can be. So when she asked Alice and Vera not to come to see you, they considered that in a way they were obliged to do as she asked; I had no such feeling. Aunt Patricia has been spending a few days with us and this morning at breakfast, I had the matter out with her. I simply told her I was coming to call on you, that she of course must do as she liked, but that I had been caring for you all my life and had no idea of ever doing anything else. If she did not wish me to remain on at the apartment, she could of course send me home."

      "Bravo, Sally!" Bettina Graham said softly under her breath.

      "Of course," Sally added, "Alice and Vera have a different attitude toward Aunt Patricia. I have never been a favorite with her, as they have, or lived alone with her during their reconstruction work in France. My own opinion is that Aunt Patricia wants to see you so much herself that she is unwilling to have us see you, for fear we shall talk of you afterwards. She made it a stipulation this morning when she agreed we could come to see you that your name was not to be mentioned in her presence. I really am awfully sorry for her. She is very lonely this winter I am afraid, shut up in her big house near Boston. She cares for you more than any one in the world, and only comes to New York occasionally, I really believe to find out how you are, although no one of us has been able to discover if she has been to see you act."

      During Sally Ashton's long speech neither her sister, Alice, nor Vera Lagerloff had appeared particularly serene.

      Vera Lagerloff was an unusual looking girl; at Sally's words, her eyes narrowed, her skin paled slightly and her lips parted over her firm, white teeth. In all the years of their Camp Fire life together, no one of her companions had ever seen Vera seriously angry, although she always insisted that notwithstanding her American birth, she shared the Russian peculiarity.

      She looked more aggrieved at this moment than was customary.

      "Sally is making a good story so far as she is concerned, although not so fortunate a one for us," she commented. "Still the worst of it is, Mrs. Burton, that Alice and I cannot altogether deny the truth of what she has told you." (Vera was always more formal in her manner toward the Sunrise Camp Fire guardian than the other girls, and rarely used the title of "Tante.") "We do feel under obligation to Aunt Patricia; neither Alice nor I could have afforded the winter at Columbia save for her kindness. Yet she did not insist on our not coming to see you, or letting you hear from us. She merely asked it as a favor, and only for a limited length of time. One of the reasons she gave was that you had chosen to separate yourself from us in order to give your time and energy to your stage career and that we should not interfere. Alice and I were merely waiting to decide what was wisest and best."

      "Very well, I understand; please let us not discuss the question any further. Of course, Vera, dear, I know Aunt Patricia also told you I would be an unfortunate influence, but you are perfectly right not to speak of this. Do tell me what you and Alice are studying at Columbia and whether you like New York and, oh, dozens of other things!"

      The Camp Fire guardian's manner was sweet and friendly as her arm encircled Sally and she gave her an affectionate embrace.

      Sally dimpled and smiled.

      "You are a prophet, Tante. Aunt Patricia suggested only this morning that in order to have your own way, you disregarded every one's wishes. The implication was that I bore a slight, but unfortunate resemblance to you."

      At this the other girls laughed and the atmosphere cleared.

      "Alice is preparing to study medicine and I am taking a course in architecture and another in domestic science. Aunt Patricia talks sometimes of returning to France and spending the rest of her days over there at her home for French war orphans. She says if we wish and our parents agree she may take Alice and me with her."

      Sally

1

See "Camp Fire Girls" Series.