A Campfire Girls Test of Friendship | Page 2

mistake, and then was afraid to admit it, and try to make up for it? I think lots of people are like that. They do something wrong, and then, just because it frightens them a little and they think it would be hard to set matters right, they make a bad thing much worse."
"Oh, you can't make me feel charitable about them, and there's no use trying, Bessie! Let's try not to talk about them, for it makes me angry every time I think of the way they behaved. They were just plain snobs, that's all!"
"I thought Gladys Cooper was pretty mean, after all the trouble we had taken last night to help her and her chum, but I do think the rest were sorry, and felt that they'd been all wrong. They really said so, if you remember."
"Well, they ought to have been, certainly! What a lot of lazy girls they must be! Do look, Bessie. There isn't a sign of life over at their camp. I bet not one of them is up yet!"
"You're a fine one to criticise anyone else for being lazy, Dolly Ransom! How long did it take me to wake you up this morning? And how many times have you nearly missed breakfast by going back to bed after you'd pretended to get up?"
"Oh, well," said Dolly, defiantly, "it's just because I'm lazy myself and know what a fault it is that I'm the proper one to call other people down for it. It's always the one who knows all about some sin who can preach the best sermon against it, you know."
"Turning preacher, Dolly?" asked Eleanor Mercer. Both the girls spun around and rushed toward her as soon as they heard her voice, and realized that she had stepped noiselessly out on the porch. They embraced her happily. She was Guardian of the Camp Fire, and no more popular Guardian could have been found in the whole State.
"Dolly's got something more against the girls from Halsted Camp!" explained Bessie, with a peal of laughter. "She says they're lazy because they're not up yet, and I said she was a fine one to say anything about that! Don't you think so too, Miss Eleanor?"
"Well, she's up early enough this morning, Bessie. But, well, I'm afraid you're right. Dolly's got a lot of good qualities, but getting up early in the morning unless someone pulls her out of bed and keeps her from climbing in again, isn't one of them."
"What time are we going to start, Miss Eleanor?" asked Dolly, who felt that it was time to change the topic of conversation. Dolly was usually willing enough to talk about herself, but she preferred to choose the subject herself.
"After we've had breakfast and cleaned things up here. It was very nice of the Worcesters to let us use their camp, and we must leave it looking just as nice as when we came."
"Are they coming back here this summer?"
"The Worcesters? No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure, though, that they have invited some friends of theirs to use the camp next week and stay as long as they like."
"I hope their friends will please the Halsted Camp crowd better than we did," said Dolly, sarcastically. "The Worcesters ought to be very careful only to let people come here who are a little better socially than those girls. Then they'd probably be satisfied."
"Now, don't hold a grudge against all those girls, Dolly," said Eleanor, smiling. "Gladys Cooper was really the ringleader in all the trouble they tried to make for us, and you've had your revenge on her. On all of them, for that matter."
"Oh, Miss Eleanor, if you could only have seen them when I threw that basket full of mice among them! I never saw such a scared lot of girls in my life!"
"That was a pretty mean trick," said Eleanor. "I don't think what they did to bother us deserved such a revenge as that, even if I believed in revenge, anyhow. I don't because it usually hurts the people who get it more than the victims."
Bessie looked at Dolly sharply, but, if she meant to say anything, Eleanor herself anticipated her remark.
"Now come on, Dolly, own up!" she said. "Didn't you feel pretty bad when you heard Gladys and Marcia were lost in the woods last night? Didn't you think that it was because you'd got the best of the girls that they turned against Gladys, and so drove her into taking that foolish night walk in the woods?"
"Oh, I did--I did!" cried Dolly. "And I told Bessie so last night, too. I never would have forgiven myself if anything really serious had happened to those two girls."
"That's just it, Dolly. You may think that revenge is a joke, perhaps, as