The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill | Page 3

room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.
"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to whether I wished to be bothered with you." Betty bit her lips, for she did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.
The older girl's face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson. "No, I am not to be your maid," she returned. "At least Mrs. Ashton said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for studying. Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I hope to graduate. If you don't wish me to stay you will please explain it to your mother, only--" Esther tried to speak naturally, but her voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least until I can find some other place. I am too old to go back to the asylum."
"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed, showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that relieved her face of some of its former plainness.
"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don't be frightened," she explained. "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there was nothing else to do with me. But you need not feel specially sorry, because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in books. Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been going to school for years. Only when your mother came last week and said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of all I wanted to know you. You will think it strange of me, but I have been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been interested in you."
Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed. "Oh, you will be sorry enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably think I am dreadfully spoiled. But do please stay for a while if you wish, at least until we find how we get on together."
Since Betty's first speech at the door had startled her, Esther had never for a moment taken her eyes from her face. Never in all her life, even when she had seen and learned far more of the ways of the world, could this girl learn not to speak the truth. So now she slowly shook her head. "Your mother did say you were spoiled; it was one reason why she wished me to come here to live," she replied. "You see, she said that you had been too much alone and had too much done for you and that your brother was so much older that he only helped to spoil you. But," Esther was hardly conscious of her listener and seemed only to be thinking aloud, "I shall not mind if you are spoiled, for how can you help being when you are so pretty and fortunate and have all the things that other girls have just to dream of possessing."
It was odd, perhaps, but the new girl's speech was made so simply and sincerely that Betty Ashton instead of feeling angry or complimented was instead a little ashamed. Had fortune been kinder to her than to other girls, kinder than to the awkward girl in front of her in her plain gray linen dress?
Betty now backed toward the door which she had so lately opened. "I am sorry to have disturbed you, but usually this room isn't occupied and I was curious to know who could be in here. I should have knocked. Some day you must sing that lovely song to me, again, for I think I would like very much to know just what my soul's desire is. The worst of life is not knowing just what you want."
Esther had followed Betty toward the hall. "How funny that sounds to me," she returned shyly, "because I think the hard part of life is not having