Margaret Vandercook

“ Every letter from her mother or Mollie or from any one of their old Camp Fire circle had something admiring to say of her. And yet she and Mollie had always thought of their Princess as only a spoiled darling, beautiful and meant only for cherishing. Ah well, the Princess was really an aristocrat in the old meaning of the word. She had never been in the least like these New York girls, caring for money for its own sake and feeling superior to other people just because of her money. Betty had birth and beauty and brains. ”

“ To the young man Betty Ashton now appeared more beautiful than his former impression of her. For on the day of their original meeting she had worn a fur coat and a cap covering her hair and a portion of her face. But now the three Camp Fire candles were once more burning, forming a kind of shining background for the girl's figure. Her hair was a deep red brown, with bronze tones, the colors in the autumn woods. There was no longer any sign of pallor or weariness in her cheeks, for pleasure and excitement had reawakened the old Betty.
"Do sit down," she urged again. ”

“ The glamour and the excitement of the theater suddenly deserted her and she felt not like a fairy or anything fantastic, but only like Polly O'Neill, a very untrained and frightened girl who was deceiving her family and friends to have this first taste of stage life, and who might suffer almost any kind of consequences: imprisonment in some boarding school, Polly feared, where she might never again be allowed any liberty or an equal imprisonment in Woodford, with no mention of the theater made in her presence as long as she lived. ”

“ And she cried on without any effort at self-control until she was limp and exhausted, although all the while her heart was saying its own special hymn of thanksgiving. And young Dr. Barton kept patting her upon the shoulder and urging her not to cry, because now there was nothing to cry about, until Betty would like to have laughed if the tears had not been bringing her a greater relief. How like a man not to understand that she could now permit herself the indulgence of tears, when for the past two weeks she had not dared, fearing that once having given way there would be no end. ”

“ And at this, Betty Ashton appeared from the darkness of the big closet at the farthest end of her bedroom. She wore a lavender cashmere frock with a broad velvet belt and a lace cap with lavender ribbons. But the cap was much awry, so that her hair was tumbled carelessly over her forehead, even showing the slight scar underneath, which usually she was so careful to hide, and her cheeks were a good deal flushed. There was no doubt that she was greatly interested or excited over something.
"Mollie and Polly, I am glad," she avowed. ”

“ Her rather oddly shaped blue eyes had a far-away, almost uncanny light in them, that somehow added to Betty's discomfort.
"Look here, Polly O'Neill," she protested, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze, "please don't be wishing a ghost upon us. I know you have always believed in Irish fairies and elves and hobgoblins and the like, and used to fuss with poor Mollie and me outrageously because we couldn't or wouldn't see them. But tonight—Oh, well, even Irish ghosts don't come strolling into one's bedroom. They at least have the courtesy to stay in churchyards and in haunted ruins." ”

“ Once only she stopped and smiled, partly from amusement and partly from satisfaction. Herr Crippen's door was half open and so was Miss McMurtry's and the Professor was playing on his violin. Such sentimental love ditties! The air throbbed with German love songs.
And Betty had a mischievous desire to stick her head into Miss McMurtry's room and see if she was engaged in some maiden-like occupation, such as marking school papers or reading the Woodford Gazette. Or was she sitting, as she should be, with her hands idly folded in her lap and her heart and mind absorbed in the music? ”

“ After bending over and listening to her instructions, he stepped forward nearer the footlights. There in the center of the room was a bowl of water in which he placed the feather and the scale.
"Wish for thyself anything thou desirest, fortune, greatness, wit, power," murmurs the old woman. "But embrace me first, as I feel that I am dying."
But Grazioso did not approach either to embrace or ask the old woman's blessing.
"I wish my grandmother to live forever!" he cried. "Appear, Fairy of the Woods. Appear, Fairy of the Water!"
And now in perfect silence Polly O'Neill made her entrance. ”

“ When life is flowing smoothly, when the days go by with no special demands made upon them, these persons may have many little weaknesses. Yet when the special occasion arises theirs is the faithfulness and fortitude. So while Betty had neither the sound judgment of Sylvia Wharton nor the brilliant fancy of Polly, it was to her that the other girls usually made their first appeal in any dilemma or distress. ”

“ Betty was wearing an Empire blue dressing gown and slippers and stockings of the same color. Her eyes were dark gray and misty with shadows under them. She looked ill, of course, and unlike her usual self, and yet it would be difficult for any misfortune to have made Betty Ashton actually ugly. For beauty is one of the most difficult things in the world to define and one of the easiest to see—a possession that is at once tangible and intangible. And Betty possessed the gift in a remarkable degree. ”

“ Then the good things have their turn—health, better and more admiring friends, fame, money, love. Whatever the struggle has been made for, if it has been sufficiently brave and persistent, the reward is sure. But there are other men and women, or girls and boys, for age makes no difference, who go down like wilted flowers in the teeth of the first storm. And on them life is apt to trample, misfortunes to pile up.
Mrs. Ashton was one of these women. She had made things doubly hard for Betty and Dick. ”

“ Imagination was not Sylvia Wharton's strong point. She was an excellent nurse, quiet, firm and patient and always to be relied upon. But what to do to make Betty Ashton stop thinking of what might await her at the end of her weeks of suffering must have taxed a far more fertile brain than Sylvia's. However, the suggestion did not have to come from her; for at this instant there was a knock at the door, so gentle that it was difficult to be sure that it really was a knock. ”

“ Polly frowned in a slightly puzzled fashion. Esther's adoration even of her beloved Betty seemed a little unnatural. Why should one girl care so much about the attitude of another one? She loved Betty herself, of course, and Betty loved her. Yet she doubted very much if either one worried over the emotions of the other.
"Oh, yes, Esther," Polly returned a trifle impatiently. "Of course Betty is devoted to you. Why shouldn't she be? Really, I do think you would let her almost trample upon you if she liked. Only Betty never would like to hurt any one, thank heaven! ”

“ Esther was living in a boarding house not far away, and she had not seen her in two weeks. And in all the world there was nothing Esther liked to talk about so much as Betty. Besides, if Esther were going home for the holidays, why, Polly felt that she would rather like to have some one persuade her into making her own decision.
Is it good or evil fortune that makes one so readily influenced by outside conditions? The December afternoon was cold and brilliant; and in few places is the climate of early winter so stimulating as in New York City. ”

“ Dick was a child, and yet the horror of it has altered his entire nature and life. He has always been serious and over-conscientious, always anxious to devote his life to the service of other people as a reparation for a tragedy which was never in the least his fault. It was therefore as much for Dick's sake as for mine that Mr. Ashton persuaded us to adopt a baby in Phyllis' place. So we drove out to the asylum together one day, with our minds not made up and there—there we found our adored Betty. ”

“ And if Polly were told to hurry, or to move on, or corrected for some mistake in her work, it was all done in so impersonal a fashion that both girls had learned valuable lessons from the experience. Esther had been amazed at the spirit in which Polly had accepted the discipline and hard work. Perhaps, after all, she had been making a mountain out of a mole hill and this disobedience on Polly's part, wrong though it certainly was, might not result in anything so disastrous as she had at first feared. ”

“ Just now Edith Norton used the word, 'loyalty.' I am glad she did, because it is just what I want to speak of—because it seems to me that loyalty is the very foundation stone of all our Camp Fires. Of course Polly has broken a part of our law. She has failed to be trustworthy, but I am not going into that, since each one of you can have your own opinion of her behavior and would have it anyway no matter what I said. But the whole point is, won't every single girl in the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire Club possibly break some of the rules some day? As we are only human, I think we are pretty sure to. ”

“ He is still poor enough, goodness knows, but he has graduated in law and set up an office. He will succeed some day, sure as faith. You can bet on him."
Betty bit her lips, her eyes dancing with amusement and curiosity. Actually her visitor was becoming so much in earnest over his friend that he was forgetting to be afraid of her.
"But what about you and your success?" she demanded.
The young man flushed, moving uncomfortably in his chair, as though yearning to get away from his questioner, and yet not knowing exactly how. ”

“ Yet Polly explained to herself that, after all, there could not be any great harm in doing what she so much wished, provided that she made confession afterwards. She was almost eighteen, and thousands of girls in New York City were earning their living, who were years younger than she. Perhaps it might even do her good to find out what this stage life really was like—whether it was as fascinating as she dreamed, or all tinsel as most grown people were so fond of telling her. ”

“ Polly murmured.
But although Mrs. Ashton wiped a few tears from her eyes, she shook her head.
"Some day you will find out that hearts are harder to break than you now believe. I would almost have given my life to have spared Betty this knowledge, and yet some day she must realize that we love her as we have always done and that love is the only thing that greatly counts, after all. There is no reason why Betty should feel any shame in her relation to Herr Crippen; he has been unfortunate, but there is nothing else against him. And Esther is a remarkable girl." ”

“ Next Edith studied Sylvia Wharton's expression. Day and night had Sylvia nursed Polly with infinite patience, and yet she had made no effort to conceal her disapproval of her stepsister's conduct and Sylvia might always be relied upon for an honest and straightforward statement of her opinion. Yet Sylvia's face at the present moment was as empty as though she had never had an idea in her life. ”

“ If our visitor was a burglar, he knows that we are aware of his presence and so won't try any more performances tonight. And if it wasn't a burglar, but a ghost, why, there is no use frightening mother to death and we will only get laughed at by the others. It seems queer to me for either a ghost or a burglar to come into a house so filled with people. If you don't mind, Polly, let us just go on back to bed and leave the light burning for our consolation. ”

“ For there is for each one of us a place in this world, some niche into which one really fits. And though this place may seem crowded, or ugly, or undesirable to other people, if it should be our own, it holds a feeling of comfort and of possession that no other spot can.
But Polly had not been thinking of niches or elements or anything of the kind either tonight or during the week past. All of her being was too deeply absorbed in the interest of the play and the actors and her own little part. ”

“ In spite of her friend's restraining glance, Edith apparently failed to regard her, for instead she glanced insinuatingly toward Eleanor Meade and Meg Everett. Both these girls had expressed themselves as deeply shocked and grieved over Polly's behavior, though neither of them appeared to be ready to make any statement of their views on this occasion. It was one thing to express an informal opinion of another girl's action, but quite another to make a formal accusation against her in the club where they had lived and worked and grown together in bonds almost closer than family ones. ”

“ And immediately Betty's face grew white and frightened, far more so than at any moment before during their adventure, so that the other girl was instantly regretful of her speech.
"Polly O'Neill," two firm hands next took hold on Polly's thin shoulders, turning her deliberately over in bed so that she was forced to face her questioner, "ever since I can remember there has been some mystery or other connected with this old room. Of course it is not haunted. I suppose sensible people don't believe in ghosts, though I don't see why not believing makes them fail to exist. ”

“ Behind her was a background of cedar and pine branches decorating the walls and just above her head flickered the lights of candles from a pair of brass sconces.
Betty wore her red brown hair parted in the middle and in two heavy braids, one falling over each shoulder, while around her forehead was a blue and silver band with the three white feathers, the insignia of her title of "Princess" in their Camp Fire Club. Her dress was cut a little low in the throat and about it were strung seven chains of honor beads. ”