The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill | Page 2

blind nor the echo of a single pair of footsteps.
At some time has a sudden silence ever fallen upon you with a sense of
foreboding like the hour before a storm or the moment preceding some
unexpected news or change in your life?
Betty hurried toward the back-stairs. She was leaning over the banisters
and had called once for one of the maids, when she ceased abruptly,
and stood still for several moments with her head tilted back and her
body tense with surprise.
So long as Betty could recall, there had been a vacant room in the rear
of the old Ashton homestead, which had stood for more than a hundred
years at the comer of Elm Street in Woodford, New Hampshire. She
was stupider than other people about remembering the events of her
childhood and yet she was sure that this room had never been used for
any purpose save as a storehouse for old pieces of furniture, for
discarded pictures, for any odds and ends that found no other resting
place about the great house. It was curious because the room was a
particularly attractive one, with big windows overlooking the back
garden, but then there was some story or other connected with it (old
houses have old memories) and this must have made it unpopular.
Betty did not know what the story was and yet she had grown up with a
queer, childish dread of this room and rarely went into it unless she felt
compelled.
Now, though she was not a coward, it did give her an uncanny
sensation to hear a low, humming sound proceeding from this
supposedly empty room.
Cautiously Betty stole toward its closed door and quietly turned the

knob without making the least noise. Then she looked in.
What transformation had taken place! The room was a store place no
longer, for most of the old furniture and all the other rubbish had been
cleared away and what was left was arranged in a comfortable, living
fashion. An old rug was spread out on the floor, a white iron bed stood
in one corner with an empty bookshelf above it. There was a vase on a
table holding a branch of blossoming pussy willow, and seated before
one of the big, open windows was a strange girl whom Betty Ashton
never remembered to have seen before in her life.
The girl was sewing, but this was not what kept Betty silent. She was
also singing a new and strangely beautiful song.
"Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame, 0 Master of the Hidden Fire;
Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me My soul's desire."
Unconscious of the intruder and forgetful of everything else the singer's
voice rose clearer and sweeter with the second verse.
"In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, 0 Master of the Hidden Fire, That
when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul's desire."
Then in silence, as she leaned closer to the window to get a better light
on her sewing, an unexpected ray of sunshine managing at this moment
to break through the clouds fell directly on her bowed head. Her hair
was not auburn, like Betty's, but bright, undeniable red.
"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you
mind telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you
happen to be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton
inquired, coolly, still keeping her position just outside the opened door.
The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown
embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood
with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously
twisting her big, rather coarse-looking hands. She was a year older than
Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult to

imagine two persons more unlike. Betty was slender but perfectly
proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which
her friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished
ancestors, while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet
that seemed too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin. She too had gray
eyes, but while Betty's brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this
girl's were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her
eyes.
In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across
the room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her
unexpected charm and dignity.
"Hasn't your mother told you of my coming? didn't she ask you if you
wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly. "I am sorry; my name is
Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you.