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+Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge, by Lilian Garis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge
+       Nora's Real Vacation
+
+Author: Lilian Garis
+
+Release Date: January 18, 2012 [EBook #38608]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PICTURESQUE FIGURE STOOD IN THE CENTER.]
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE
+
+OR
+
+_Nora's Real Vacation_
+
+By LILIAN GARIS
+
+Author of
+
+    "The Girl Scout Pioneers," "The Girl Scouts
+    at Bellaire," "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest,"
+    "The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong," etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES
+
+By LILIAN GARIS
+
+Cloth. 12mo. Frontispiece.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS
+    Or, Winning the First B. C.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE
+    Or, Maid Mary's Awakening
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST
+    Or, The Wig Wag Rescue
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG
+    Or, Peg of Tamarack Hills
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE
+    Or, Nora's Real Vacation
+
+_Other volumes in preparation_
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+Copyright, 1922, by
+
+Cupples & Leon Company
+
+The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge
+
+_Printed in U. S. A._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I. Jim or Jerry: Ted or Elizabeth
+II. The Attic
+III. A Broken Dream
+IV. Transplanted
+V. The Woods at Rocky Ledge
+VI. A Prince in Hiding
+VII. Cap to the Rescue
+VIII. The Story Alma Did Not Tell
+IX. A Misadventure
+X. A Novel Initiation
+XI. Too Much Teasing
+XII. A Diversion Nobly Earned
+XIII. Crawling in the Shadows
+XIV. Circumstantial Evidence
+XV. Waif of the Wildwoods
+XVI. Lady Bountiful Junior
+XVII. A Picnic and Otherwise
+XVIII. The Little Lord's Confession
+XIX. A Deserted Tryst
+XX. The Worst Fright of All
+XXI. Strange Disclosures
+XXII. The Danger Squad in Action
+XXIII. Raiding the Attic
+XXIV. Fulfillment
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+JIM OR JERRY: TED OR ELIZABETH
+
+
+"Do you mind if I call you Jim?"
+
+"Why no--that is----"
+
+"And may I call the lady Aunt Elizabeth?"
+
+"Elizabeth?"
+
+"If you don't mind; I'd love to."
+
+"But the fact is----"
+
+"You see, I have always wanted a man named Jim to protect me, and now
+that I've got you I'd love to have you as Jim. Then, I have perfectly
+loved the Aunt Elizabeths. They're always so lacy and cameo like." She
+stood off and critically inspected the smiling woman in the most modern
+of costumes.
+
+"You're really too young," continued the girl, "but you'll grow old soon
+I hope, don't you think so?"
+
+"I'm afraid I shall----"
+
+"Then that's that. And I'm glad we are settling things so quickly. Could
+I see my attic room now, Aunt Elizabeth?"
+
+"Attic room?"
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+"Not exactly. We were giving you the yellow room; it's so cheerful and
+pretty."
+
+"Well, of course, I don't want to be too particular, and it's lovely of
+you, dear Aunt Elizabeth, but all girls taken in are put in attic rooms,
+aren't they?"
+
+"Taken in?"
+
+"Yes, sort of adopted you know. The attic always gives the shadowy ghost
+business." There was just a hint of disappointment in the child's manner
+now.
+
+"We've got a first rate attic room," suggested the man who was tilting
+up and down in a heel and toe exercise. "And what do you say, Ted, I
+mean Elizabeth," he chuckled, "if we give----"
+
+"Jerry, don't talk nonsense," interrupted the young woman not unkindly
+but with some decision. "I am sure she would rather have the pretty----"
+
+"But, please, could I see the attic room?" came rather timidly the very
+thread of a voice from the little girl.
+
+"It's ghostly." This from Jerry.
+
+"That would be just perfect. Does the roof slant so it gives you the
+nightmare on your chest, you know? And does the moon sort of make faces
+in the windows?" Interest was overcoming timidity.
+
+"That may be the trouble," replied the man, with a chuckle. "But I'll
+tell you, little girl. Suppose we take the yellow room until you have a
+chance to inspect thoroughly. You see your--er--Aunt Elizabeth has had
+it all planned and fixed up----"
+
+"Oh yes. Do excuse me for being impolite. You see, I've been thinking
+about it so long. The school was lovely, and the teachers all very kind,
+but it was sort of a regular kindness, you know, and did not have any of
+my dreams coming true in it. Do you dream an awful lot here?"
+
+"Day dreams or night dreams?" asked the man.
+
+"Oh, wake-dreams, of course. The other kind don't mean anything. Just
+stickers in your brain sort of pricking, you know. But the wake-dreams
+can come true, if you plague them long enough. I guess they get tired
+fighting you off and they have to give in and happen. What do you want
+to call me?" This was a sudden digression and marked with a complete
+flopping down of the talkative child.
+
+"Your name is Nora, isn't it?" replied the young woman who seemed rather
+glad to sit down herself. They were on the big square porch and rockers
+were plentiful.
+
+"Yes, my name is Nora, and it's pretty good, but hard to rhyme easily.
+Then I would rather have you call me the name you have always called
+your dream child."
+
+"Mine was Bob," blurted the man, "but Bob wouldn't exactly suit you."
+
+"Oh, yes it would," she jumped up again and left the rocker swaying
+wildly. "Bob would be splendid for me. Would it suit you, Aunt
+Elizabeth? What was your pet name?"
+
+"I think Nora too pretty to drop. Besides, don't you really think a name
+is a part of one's self and ought to be loved and respected?"
+
+"That's just it. I want to--that is, if you don't mind, I want to be the
+self I planned, not this one I didn't have anything to say about. It's
+just like religion. When we grow up big as I am, we ought to be allowed
+to choose." Her manner was even more babyish than her appearance.
+
+"Big as I am!" Jerry repeated this to a rosebush.
+
+As a matter of fact she was not much bigger than a child of eight years
+might be, but she claimed a few more birthdays and she looked about as
+substantial as a wind flower. Her eyes were blue, her hair light and
+fluffy, and she wore such a tiny white slip of a dress, socks and
+sandals and a white lace hat! Grown up? She looked just like an
+old-fashioned baby.
+
+"Then, shall I be Bobbs?" asked Nora a moment later, with hope in her
+voice.
+
+"Ye-e-s, and if--the auntie wants to soften it she can call you
+Babette," ventured Jerry. "And now, if the christenings are over,
+suppose we go inside and freshen up. Come along Bob, you are going to be
+my helper now, aren't you?" Jerry's eyes twinkled with his voice. He
+was, plainly, enjoying himself.
+
+"I'd love to help--especially with outdoor work," replied the girl. "And
+you measure land, don't you?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, that's about it. In other words I'm a surveyor," explained Jerry.
+
+"And Aunt Elizabeth helps. Isn't that lovely? We won't, any of us, have
+old pesky house work to think about. I haven't ever dreamed a dream, not
+a single one, about housekeeping. Some one always does that for me, or I
+just don't think about it at all and it's all done beautifully," boasted
+Nora. "I love your place. It's so romantic," she expanded her arms and
+fluffy little skirt to fill the big chair. "I feel, somehow, everything
+is going to come true now." Relief toned this statement while she looked
+wistfully out of blue eyes, and any one might have easily guessed that
+something very dear was included in that word "everything."
+
+The young woman, who was threatened with being made over into an old
+Aunt Elizabeth with laces and cameos to boot, gazed intently at the
+small personality. She realized it was a personality, a little dreamer,
+a big romancer, and a very weird sample of the modern girl,
+self-trained.
+
+He who was to become "Jim" on the spot, seemed tickled to death over it
+all, and kept snapping his brown eyes, first at the newly named Bobbs
+and then his life's partner, until glints of fun-sparks charged the very
+air.
+
+"It might be a good idea to put on tags for a day or two," he suggested
+playfully. "I would hate to spoil the program by calling Elizabeth here
+just Ted."
+
+"Oh, do you think it will be hard? I didn't mean to make trouble, and,
+if you say so, I'll just put the dream back again on its peg and let it
+stay there. It really doesn't have to come true right now. There are so
+many new things to talk about," temporized Nora, considerately.
+
+"I think it would be lots better to try things out for a little while
+under our own names," suggested the young woman, eagerly. "And I have
+always loved the name Nora, so you see, _my_ dream will be coming true,
+at any rate," she smiled.
+
+"Goody--goody! It's all right, then. I'll be Nora, and you'll be Ted,
+that's pretty: what does it mean?"
+
+"Theodora," answered the man promptly.
+
+"Then it is prettier than the old-fashioned Elizabeth," agreed the
+child. "Really, things are different when you think about them than what
+they are when--you run right into them, aren't they?"
+
+"Sure thing, especially water wagons and book agents," joked Jerry.
+
+"And Jerry is lovely, too, just as nice as Jim. I knew a lovely old
+tramp dog named Jerry." Again the wistful blue eyes dreamed.
+
+"That's real nice," added the owner of the popular name. "Was
+he--gentle?"
+
+"As a lamb. I used to ride on his back!"
+
+"And was he--er--handsome?"
+
+"He had the loveliest ears, all little pleaty wrinkles, and such big,
+floppy feet----"
+
+"All right, I'll be content to be his namesake, only don't expect me to
+howl when the phonograph plays. I can't undertake to do that," demurred
+the affable Jerry.
+
+They all laughed a little at this protest, for Jerry Manton seemed good
+natured enough to "howl" if occasion demanded it. Even the moon might
+have inspired him "doggerly" so to speak.
+
+Mrs. Manton picked up the little hand satchel that Nora kept at her side
+when the other baggage was being disposed of, and gently urged the
+little visitor into the Nest, there to settle that other question of
+attic or guest room.
+
+The short bright curls bobbed up and down incredulously, as their
+surprised owner looked in on the yellow room, a moment later.
+
+"Golden! Perfectly golden!" exclaimed the child. "But, of course, one
+could never get the nightmare in this lovely bird cage." She stopped,
+apparently reasoning out bird cages, nightmares and ghostly attics. "And
+I have simply got to have a strange experience," she scratched her heels
+together anxiously. "I just couldn't give that up," she decided.
+
+"But you do think this is a pretty room?" asked the hostess, her own
+soft eyes embracing affectionately the golden space before them.
+
+"Glorious!" declared Nora rapturously. "And I'm afraid it has been
+rather silly to get set on certain things without really knowing about
+them. Dreams are uncertain, after all."
+
+Jerry was just coming up the rustic stairs.
+
+"But the attic is a real spook parlor," he chimed in, "and I've always
+loved it myself. I have a corner for my trash, and the sleeping quarters
+aren't bad. You see this place was built with government money, and
+that's always--well, real money," he finished, significantly.
+
+"But Jerry," again came the opposition from Mrs. Manton, "you know we
+have scarcely had time to look that attic over since we came here. It
+seems perfectly absurd to let Nora go up there," she paused. "I know
+it's clean, for Vita takes a pride in fixing attics, but why----"
+
+"Now Ted," the voice was as soft as a boy's, "why not let our little
+girl have her way?"
+
+"I really am not objecting," said the wife with a smile, "I'm just
+qualifying."
+
+"But who dares qualify day dreams?" asked the man, with a comical twist
+in his voice.
+
+Nora stood on the threshold, uncertainly. "I guess maybe," she pondered,
+"we think a lot about dreams when we haven't real things to think about,
+like playthings, for real," she finished.
+
+"That's exactly it, dear," said Mrs. Manton, "and day dreams are not
+always healthy, either."
+
+"All the same," insisted Jerry, "I'm strong for that attic. It smells
+just like the woods after my men have made a good, clean cutting. Come
+along, girlie, and let me show it to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE ATTIC
+
+
+"How's this?" asked the man.
+
+"Oh, wonderful! Those beams, they slant just like the story books say,"
+declared Nora, ecstatically.
+
+"Good enough to give you the right sort of nightmare, eh? Well, that's
+nice. Ted is always after the cobwebs, but I don't let her spoil them if
+I'm around. You see, cobwebs have a lot to do in my business."
+
+"Cobwebs?" Nora poked her little head in between two chummy beams. "What
+do cobwebs do in surveying?"
+
+"They make a cross line on my object glass. I'll show you when I get
+around to it," replied Jerry. "Now see here, here's the secret chest,"
+he was opening a big wooden box, "and by a miracle," he continued, "it
+does hold clothes, duds, et-cet-tee-ra."
+
+"The people who had this place gave a big party, I believe," explained
+Mrs. Ted, "and they left a lot of their costumes here. We have never had
+any chance to make use of them," she finished, slapping her hands on the
+work apron that partly covered her own mannish costume. Apparently she
+disdained the frivolous things.
+
+"But just look!" Nora was almost in the big cedar chest; in fact,
+nothing more than a bump of white, ending in two small brown spots that
+waggled like sandaled feet, was visible. Presently the curly head
+emerged in a cloud of brilliant, spangly stuff, very evidently the
+costumes. "Aren't these just wonderful!"
+
+"Oh yes," agreed Jerry, "they're nice and shiny. But just look at this
+spook cabinet. Do you know what a spook cabinet is, Nora?"
+
+"No, what?" She dropped the costumes back into the big chest instantly.
+
+"They're just a box of tricks. But this is the box empty. See here,"
+Jerry opened, with some difficulty, the long narrow closet that was
+built in a corner of the attic room. "I have always wondered why this
+had a ventilator at the top----" he began.
+
+"Jerry!" called his wife rather sharply. "Please don't do all the
+exploring in one day. Nora must change her things and come down stairs.
+She may want something to eat after her journey." Mrs. Ted's tone of
+voice was plainly against that cabinet.
+
+"All right, Ted, I'll subside," replied the jolly man. "The fact is----"
+he whispered to Nora, "our Ted hates ghosts; and every time I talk about
+this here upright coffin, she objects," and he gave one of his boyish
+twisted yelps, as if he wanted to yell but didn't dare so gurgled
+instead, and it was very plain he said this out of pure mischief;
+nevertheless, it did cause the little girl to clench her small fists and
+start suddenly.
+
+"Come right down stairs," insisted the hostess imperatively. "I'm very
+sure, Nora dear, you will find something more interesting in Vita's cake
+box than you could dig out of that dusty hole."
+
+"Vita! What a queer name!" exclaimed Nora, following Mrs. Manton out
+from the interesting attic.
+
+"Her whole name is more than that. It's Vittoria, but since she does our
+cooking and is both vital and vitaminous, we cut it down to an easy word
+implying both," explained Ted. "You see, Nora, we are keen on short
+cuts."
+
+The little girl was thinking something like that. In fact, she was so
+fascinated with the realities of her visit she had almost lost the last
+shred of faith in her picturesque dreams. "If I had ever named a cook,"
+she was deciding, "I should surely have given her Susan or Betsy or
+maybe Jennie. But Vita means more and makes you think of good victuals."
+
+The open stairs were built winding from the big field stone hearth in
+the first room, clear up to the attic chamber, and, as they descended,
+Nora looked about the quaint, rustic place in rapturous admiration.
+Indeed, no dream of her great life series had ever included this. Gone
+with the Jim-Aunt Elizabeth idea was going the rag-rug four-poster plan,
+that had seemed almost indelibly outlined on her whimsical picture
+plate. She sighed a little, as she felt she should, on the "grave of her
+dreams;" but there was Jerry calling from the open door:
+
+"Here you are, Nora! Come and meet Cap."
+
+"Cap! A boy!" she asked excitedly.
+
+"Not the regular kind, but he's some boy just the same." Jerry was
+clapping his hands like a boy himself, just as a big shaggy dog bounded
+down the path and up the few steps to the square porch.
+
+"Oh, what a beauty! I have always loved a big dog!" exclaimed Nora.
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Captain," replied the proud master. "Here Cap, come shake hands with
+Nora."
+
+The dog cocked one ear up inquisitively, looked over the small girl with
+majestic indifference, walked around her twice and finally flung his
+bushy tail out with a swish that fanned Nora's cheek as she bent over to
+make friends.
+
+"Isn't he lovely! Just like the picture in my first story book; the big
+dog that dragged the lost man out of the snow drifts," said Nora, almost
+breathless with delight.
+
+"He is exactly that sort," explained Jerry. "He came from the other side
+and was a Captain in the big war."
+
+"Oh," sighed Nora wistfully. "He must know an awful lot."
+
+"He surely does, eh, old boy?" and the big shaggy head was patted
+affectionately.
+
+Meanwhile Vita, the Italian woman who held the office of housekeeper,
+was depositing a mess of freshly-picked dandelions in a pan on the
+kitchen table. She smiled pleasantly at the little stranger, and at a
+single glance Nora knew she and Vita were sure to be friends.
+
+"Now, you know us all," announced the hostess. "Vita and Captain
+complete the circle."
+
+"Not counting the crow, and the rabbits and the cat and the----"
+
+"The animal kingdom is not included," Ted interrupted her husband. "When
+we get to checking up the animals please, after Captain count in
+Cyclone."
+
+"Cyclone! A horse?" asked Nora.
+
+"Yes, the horse," answered Jerry. "He can climb trees, crawl through
+gullies and swim the river like a bear, according to Ted."
+
+"Well, hardly all of that," qualified the smiling owner of the saddle
+horse Cyclone. "But he is a wonderful horse, Nora. I am sure you will
+want to ride him."
+
+"Oh, I'd be dreadfully afraid," demurred the girl. "But perhaps----"
+
+"You aren't going to be afraid of anything around here, Bobbie," Jerry
+assured the small girl, who looked smaller by contrast to the big man
+and the robust, athletic young woman; both perfect models of "America's
+best."
+
+Considering the very short time little Nora had been at the Nest, it
+appeared much, in the way of acquaintance, had been accomplished.
+
+"If you will just run off, Jerry-boy, and manage to find something to
+keep you busy for a half hour or so," begged his wife finally, "perhaps
+Nora and I will be able to settle down to the comforts of home."
+
+"Am I not included?" he asked teasingly.
+
+"Sometimes, but just now we need space," replied she, who was
+affectionately styled Teddy.
+
+"That being the case----. Come along Cap," and the next moment a very
+happy, boyish man and a wildly happy dog went scampering off through the
+"flap-jack" path in the clearance. The path was made of selected flat
+stones scattered at stepping intervals, and it was Jerry who insisted
+they reminded him of Vita's best flap-jacks.
+
+The coming of Nora to the lodge in the wilderness was the result of what
+seemed a necessity. The child was the daughter of Theodora Crane's best
+friend Naomie Blair, an artist so highly temperamental that, after a
+series of nerve episodes, she finally seemed forced to go to Western
+mountains and leave little Nora at a select school. The school was
+select to the point of isolation, and the teachers had advised Theodora,
+who was in charge of Nora, that the child was so nervous, high strung
+and fanciful, that the doctors had ordered a complete change of
+surroundings.
+
+These characteristics were already showing in Nora's conduct; but with
+that understanding of childhood always a part of pure affection for it,
+Theodora was pleased, rather than worried, over the prospects ahead.
+
+Nora herself seemed bewildered and fascinated. Her love of "dream
+things" was plainly a part of her nature, at the same time she was
+quickly learning that only happy realities can make happy dreams.
+
+In the small satchel that Nora clung to was found no suitable change of
+anything like practical clothing, in fact her dress was so fussy,
+be-ribboned and be-frilled, that Teddy hesitated about offering any of
+it to the briars and brambles of the timberland.
+
+"I pick out all my own dresses, you know," the little girl explained.
+"Nannie wasn't able to do any shopping so she had the catalogues sent to
+me by mail."
+
+"Nannie?"
+
+"That's mother, of course. But she is so little and delicate I could
+never think of calling her mother," declared Nora. "She likes Nannie
+better."
+
+"You have quite a talent for names or re-names," joked Teddy. "I am
+wondering how I should have liked the 'Lizzie' you chose for me."
+
+"Not Lizzie! Elizabeth," in a shocked voice.
+
+"Same lady, I believe. But let's hold on to Ted until we get acquainted
+or things may go on end," advised good-natured Mrs. Manners. "Besides,
+there's our auto, that's 'Lizzie' to Jerry."
+
+Nora did not ask why. She was in the yellow room, changing, and the blue
+roses in the filmy little dress she selected were not bluer than her own
+wondering eyes.
+
+"I tell you what would be just the thing for you, dear," said Teddy
+suddenly. "You must join the Girl Scouts!"
+
+"Girl Scouts!"
+
+"Yes, you know about them, don't you?"
+
+"I've read about them, but I really never could, Aunt Teddy. I couldn't
+be one of those wild, uncultured girls."
+
+A delicious laugh escaped Teddy.
+
+"Wild and uncultured!" she repeated. Then, seeing the pitifully blank
+look on Nora's face she dropped the subject. "Here's your closet," she
+explained next, opening the door of a built-in wardrobe, "and you better
+slip these little pads on the ends of hangers when you put pretty things
+on them. You see, we have very few fancy things out here, and these
+hangers are cut from our birch trees. I had a visitor last year who was
+so afraid of snakes she spent all her time around the lodge, so she made
+these pine pads with fancy stocking ends. I have never needed to use
+them."
+
+The pads were little cushions of pine needles sewed in silk stocking
+ends, with a long open seam along the side. These slipped onto the
+hangers and were tied with tapes at the hook. Nora quickly adjusted one
+for her dotted swiss dress and another for her pink rose silk. These,
+strange to tell, she had carried in her hand bag.
+
+"And here is your dresser," Teddy further introduced. "See what lovely
+deep drawers."
+
+"Aren't they? I'd love to put lavender and rosemary in the corners. Do
+you--like those perfumes?"
+
+"Well, yes, as perfumes. But I'm so used to the odor of freshly cut
+trees I'm afraid my finer taste is disappearing," said the other
+quietly.
+
+Into the drawer Nora was placing such an outlay of finery as any young
+bride might have boasted of. Selecting from catalogues was only too
+evident in the lacy garments, with little ribbons, and tiny rose buds;
+pretty in themselves but absurd on the undergarments of a growing child.
+Then, there was an ivory set, mirror, comb, brush, etc. As the surprised
+Teddy glimpsed the display over a khaki covered shoulder she had
+difficulty in choking back a laugh.
+
+"Naomie would be as silly as that," she pondered, silently, reflecting
+that the same sort of whims in dress and finery had been a real part of
+Naomie Blair's young girlhood.
+
+Nora was placing her pretty things on the big dresser, with skilled
+little fingers, and that the fancy, private, exclusive school had helped
+to make silly traits even more pronounced in little Nora, was too
+evident.
+
+Wisely, however, Mrs. Ted said not a word in opposition. Things must
+move slowly, she realized, if the quaint little dreamer was not to be
+too rudely shocked out of her fancies.
+
+It was all very exciting even to the placid, well balanced young woman.
+To have the daughter of her girlhood friend come into her very arms,
+like a little bird battered in the storm of life's uncertainties, with
+tired wings falling against the bright window pane of love; then to see
+the dreams unfolded with the Jims, Elizabeths, ghosts and attic fancies,
+ready to reel off like an actual moving-picture--it was all very
+surprising, not to say astonishing, for the sensible, modern Mantons.
+
+But could this same bright-eyed lady have looked into the summer ahead,
+and forseen the new fields of fancies that Nora was about to explore,
+she might have been still more amazed. Playing mother to a butterfly is
+not often a very satisfactory experience, but there was Nora, and if
+ever a child needed a mother this little "whimsy" did.
+
+"To think of calling her mother Nannie," reflected Mrs. Manton, "and if
+only I could have called such a child 'daughter.'"
+
+Jerry was back from his enforced trip to the lumberland, and his whistle
+trickled in the window on a flood of sunshine.
+
+"Oh, let's go down," exclaimed Nora, brushing things hastily into the
+dresser drawer and neglecting to tie her sash in an even bow. "I'm so
+anxious to see your outdoors, I could easily believe there are fairies
+in these thick, tangly woods."
+
+"Our birds and little animal friends are just as interesting as
+fairies," remarked Mrs. Ted, "but you must know them and they must know
+you."
+
+"How ever could one get acquainted with birds?" asked Nora, stopping a
+moment on her way out to answer Jerry's whistle.
+
+"We don't know how, but we know we do," replied Mrs. Ted, giving the
+flying window curtain a jerk to let the sun stream in. "Some day I must
+tell you about the poor little blue-jay we took in and nursed. He got so
+fond of us I could hardly get him to fly away."
+
+"I had a canary once, Nannie sent it for Christmas, but I had to let him
+go," said Nora. "He was just breaking his heart in that tiny, little
+cage. I never wanted a bird again."
+
+"They are pathetic when caged," agreed Mrs. Manton, "but when out in
+their own woods they seem to be the very happiest little creatures of
+all creation. Run along," she said, as Nora waited politely. "That
+Jerry-boy is getting impatient."
+
+As the child fluttered off, her yellow ringlets dancing and her dainty
+little skirts swishing around the half tied ribbon sash, Mrs. Ted smiled
+and pondered:
+
+"Another little blue-jay to love; but she will surely want to fly away
+in her sky of dreams, and I pity the tired wings when night comes,"
+sighed the potential mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A BROKEN DREAM
+
+
+It was evening at the Nest, and the quiet settling down on the woodlands
+vibrated with a melody, at once silent and musical.
+
+Little Nora fairly trembled with expectation. What would the night
+bring? She was determined to sleep in that attic under the big, dark
+rafters. As a matter of fact Nora was fascinated with fear; just as one
+may stop on a river bridge and feel like jumping in.
+
+"Just pound on the floor, Kitten, if you get scared. We'll run up and
+get you, quickly enough," declared Jerry, secretly proud of Nora's
+pluck.
+
+"But really, dear," objected Mrs. Ted, "I would rather you would----"
+
+"Now Ted, you know well enough you had a heap of fun the night you and
+Jettie slept in the haunted house. Never mind the trouble you made in
+the neighborhood, you had your fun," and he clapped his brown hands on
+his knee and laughed, until Cap, the big dog, rolled over in his sleep
+and grunted inquiringly.
+
+This reminder caused Ted to smile indulgently, and when Nora twined her
+warm little arms around the same Teddie's neck, it seemed to the adopted
+mother she could not deny her anything--she might sleep on the roof if
+the whim occurred to her just then.
+
+While the family, which included Vita and the big tiger cat, besides Cap
+and a cage of newly adopted birds, were either talking or listening to
+talk, Vita, from the kitchen door, was acting rather queerly. She would
+shuffle back and forth, start to speak and hesitate, cough, spill pans
+and make other unusual noises, until Ted called out:
+
+"What's the matter, Vita? You seem to be having a lot of trouble."
+
+"Not trouble, just worry," replied the elderly servant in good English,
+but strongly accented.
+
+"Worry?" repeated Jerry. "Why Vita, you never worry. What's wrong? Come
+in and tell us about it."
+
+At this invitation Vita showed herself in the comfortable sitting room,
+towel in hand and head wagging.
+
+"It's like this," she began, "that attic----"
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it? Now don't you go worrying about the attic,"
+interrupted Jerry. "If our little girl wants to dream one dream out up
+there, why shouldn't she? I like her spirit."
+
+"But when--there's the pretty room----"
+
+"Why Vita!" It was Ted who interrupted this time. "I'm surprised that
+you should interfere!"
+
+"Now, you know, dear, Vita means no harm," Jerry broke in, always eager
+to smooth things out. "But there really doesn't seem any cause for all
+this anxiety."
+
+"I would say, please," ventured the housekeeper, "a little girl might
+get scared up in that black garret," and she made her dark eyes glare,
+plainly with the intent of frightening Nora out of her plans.
+
+"Then it will be over, anyhow," spoke up the child, "and I might as well
+get scared tonight as any other night," she concluded loftily.
+
+"Right-o!" sang out Jerry. "I can tell sure thing, Kitten, that you and
+I are going to have a heap of fun in these diggings. When you get
+through with one scare we'll invent another, and in that way we'll be
+able to keep things interesting."
+
+Vita threw back her head, rolled her eyes again and made a queer sort of
+gurgle. Then she swished her dish towel in the air with such a jerk it
+snapped like a whip, and realizing further argument would be useless,
+she turned back into her own quarters.
+
+As she went out, man and wife exchanged questioning glances. They
+plainly asked each other why their maid should be so concerned, but with
+Nora present it was unwise to put the query into words, so it remained
+unanswered.
+
+Nothing but sheer pity prevented Mrs. Jerry Manton, better known as Ted,
+from bursting into delicious laughter at the sight of Nora in her
+boudoir finery, as, an hour later, she picked her way up into that
+attic.
+
+Jerry kept discreetly at a distance, but he too saw the figure, so like
+the model of an old time master painting, as she climbed the stairs,
+unlighted candle in hand, with Cap at the little pink heels that just
+peeked out from under a very beautiful, dainty night-robe.
+
+Her candle was not lighted--Cousin Ted, (the latest name given the
+hostess) would not permit the lighting, as she argued it was dangerous
+to carry the little flame so near to the flimsy robe: never-the-less,
+Nora wanted the candle, and she carried it along to complete the
+picture.
+
+At the door Ted touched a button and the convenient big electric bulb,
+ordinarily used by Jerry when he went to the attic workroom, showered a
+welcome light over the dark rafters and the queer eerie, lofty quarters.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful!" said Nora, in a voice so shaky the wonder part
+seemed rather awful.
+
+"If you get the least bit nervous, dear, you come right down to the
+yellow room," cautioned Ted. "We will leave the hall lights on, and Cap
+wanders about all night. So if you hear him don't be alarmed."
+
+"It would be nice----" Nora paused, then continued, "if Cap would sleep
+up here on this lovely landing. Couldn't we give him a pillow?"
+
+"I'm sure he wouldn't stay long," objected Ted. "Our Cap is a wonderful
+night watchman and has a regular beat to cover. He will be sure to visit
+you more than once before morning." She was turning away reluctantly.
+The circumstances exacted full strength of her own courage--to leave
+that little wisp of a child up in the lonely attic just to satisfy a
+whim.
+
+But Ted knew the only sure way to effect a cure for the fanciful
+nonsense was to let it burn out: it could never be successfully
+suppressed. Hence the decision and the attic quarters.
+
+"Good night, cousin Ted," said Nora bravely. "And don't worry about me.
+I'm sure to sleep and dream beautifully in that nice, fresh bed."
+
+"It is fresh; I changed it all as Vita seemed so opposed to letting you
+come up here," said Ted, thoughtfully. "But while Vita is very queer in
+some respects, she is loyal and faithful, always."
+
+Nora threw her small arms around Ted's neck impulsively.
+
+"If only Nannie liked housekeeping," she sighed. "Couldn't we have
+perfectly lovely times in a little house of our own?"
+
+"Your mother is sure to change her ideas when she grows stronger,"
+replied the young woman, charitably. "Naomie has what is termed the
+artistic temperament. As a rule it is greatly and sadly in need of
+discipline."
+
+Nora sighed and pressed a loving pair of trembling lips on Mrs. Manton's
+brown cheek.
+
+"I'm so glad I found you, anyhow. And Cousin Jerry is just the very
+loveliest big jolly man! I'm sure I'm going to be very happy here," she
+finished with an impressive sigh.
+
+"I know you are, dear. We have more kinds of things to do in this big
+woodland! Just wait until you go out surveying with us!" Ted promised,
+"then you will see some of the wonders of the great outdoors. There's
+Jerry's whistle now. I must run away and get him his bread and milk.
+Would you believe that great, big baby has a bowl of milk and two cuts
+of home made bread every night? He says his mother always told her
+children a story when they took this extra meal, and he insists he would
+break up the family circle if he failed to take his nightly supply."
+
+"Break up the family? Do they come here?"
+
+"Oh, bless you, no. Jerry just fancies the other two brothers in Canada
+and the sister who is a nurse in the mountains, all eat bread and milk
+at nine-thirty P. M." She laughed a little, caressing ripple. Even Nora
+knew that this young wife cherished any filial view held up by her
+husband.
+
+Ted was gone, and presently it was time to turn out the big bulb light
+that dangled from the rafters. Nora peered into the looking glass at her
+own little face to make doubly sure of herself. Then she made a complete
+survey of the room.
+
+"Just to know that any noise isn't here," she apologized to herself,
+poking her yellow head into a nest of cobwebs and jerking back with a
+little gasp.
+
+"Oh!" she panted, "Cousin Jerry wants cobwebs for his surveying
+instruments. I must be sure to remember where that nest is."
+
+Over by the chimney a line of paper bags hung and these now seemed
+"spooky" in the shadowy light. Other hanging things in the low parts of
+the attic that were set away from the center, the latter which was
+forming the unfinished bed room, all added to the grotesque outline.
+
+"But I've got to do it," declared little Nora, crawling at last under
+the fresh bed covering Cousin Ted had provided.
+
+"I'll leave the light on for a little while just to try it," decided
+Nora, her yellow head buried so deeply beneath the covers that it was
+quite impossible to tell light from darkness.
+
+A little click from somewhere brought her up straight in the bed, a
+moment later. She listened with all her alert senses but nothing else
+happened. With a new feeling, somewhat akin to disappointment, Nora once
+more settled down, first, however, she actually turned off the light,
+and only the slim streak from the far away hall showed a single beam
+that framed the chimney line.
+
+Being brave--as brave as all this--was really a new experience to Nora,
+but she had promised herself to "hold out"; and then Cousin Jerry had
+seemed so proud of her pluck she would never disappoint him.
+
+"Makes me feel almost as big as a boy," she encouraged herself, "and
+won't I have a wonderful story to write Barbara."
+
+Now she thought of Barbara, the tom-boy girl at school: she who could
+climb and romp, laugh and cry, defy the prim madams who conducted the
+school, it was certainly conducted not "run," and the Misses Baily were
+types of teachers such as the most carping critic might depict, black
+string eye-glasses and all.
+
+The vision flitted before the blinking eyes of Nora. She was so glad to
+get away from school restrictions and perhaps--well perhaps Cousin Jerry
+and Cousin Ted might get to love her so fondly they would not send her
+back.
+
+What was that!
+
+Over by the big chest!
+
+Quickly Nora struck a match and lighted her candle.
+
+A figure moved, there was no mistake about it, a person, a real live
+person was surely over by the spook cabinet.
+
+Nora almost stopped breathing.
+
+She was afraid to call out and still more afraid to remain quiet.
+
+There it was again!
+
+"Oh! Oh! Cousin Ted!"
+
+She did call, but in such a thread of a voice she scarcely heard it
+herself.
+
+The next moment Cap sniffed his big, warm nose up under her arm.
+
+"Oh, Cap, I'm so glad! Stay with me. I'm frightened!" she whispered,
+drawing his tawny head closer.
+
+Then it occurred to her that the big dog had not barked. She knew he
+could scent a stranger in any part of the house, and she was equally
+sure a real person had moved over by the cabinet. Who could it be?
+
+Her first sudden fright was now giving place to reason. The intruder
+must be human, and perhaps whoever it was, he was giving Cap something
+he liked. But that would not account for his submission, for Cap was not
+a dog to take things from strangers.
+
+Horrible thoughts of chloroform stifled the girl. She even fancied she
+did detect a strange, depressing odor. What if she should be drugged!
+
+An attempt to move found her too frightened to put one foot over the
+side of that bed. Why had she waited so long? A sickening fear was
+coming on. Oh, suppose it should be unconsciousness?
+
+There was a stir. Cap was knocking things about. Now he dashed over and
+was surely bounding up on someone.
+
+"Down!" came the command.
+
+It was given in the voice of Vita!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+TRANSPLANTED
+
+
+Nora was too surprised now to even think coherently. That Vita should be
+up in her attic!
+
+"Down, down Cap!" the housekeeper was ordering, while the dog, evidently
+realizing something very unusual was occurring, added his part to the
+confusion.
+
+"Vita!" called Nora in a subdued voice, "Come over this way!"
+
+"Hush! Don't wake the folks," cautioned the maid, now beside Nora's bed.
+"I--just--come to--shut the window----"
+
+"Oh, is there a window over there?"
+
+"A little one," evaded Vita. "But why do you come up to this dirty
+place?"
+
+"It isn't dirty, and I like attics." Nora's was confident now and her
+voice betrayed some resentment.
+
+"You like it?" Vita sniffed so hard the candle almost choked to death.
+
+"Why yes; why shouldn't I? I'm romantic you know."
+
+"Roman----"
+
+"Oh, you don't understand. I'm sort of booky, like a story, you know,"
+explained Nora loftily. "I love things that are like the parts of a
+story."
+
+It was difficult to make certain that this lusty Italian understood; but
+even in the dim light, her dark eyes seemed kind and full of smiling
+glints, and her ruddy cheeks dimpled all over like a big tufted pin
+cushion, giving Nora a feeling of security mingled with curiosity.
+
+Why did Vita come up? There was no draft from any window. Was there even
+a window?
+
+"I tell you, baby," the woman began, as if answering Nora's silent
+questions, "you be a very good little girl and go down to the pretty
+sun-gold room; yes?"
+
+The big warm arm was cuddling the little form in the bed, and Cap was so
+happy he put both paws gingerly on the coverlet, snapping a very short
+bark of a question right into Nora's face.
+
+"Quiet, boy!" whispered Nora. "We are having a lovely party but we must
+not wake our neighbors."
+
+The big shaggy head burrowed down into the covers, and Nora felt like a
+little queen on a throne with her servants bowing at her feet.
+
+"Go on, Vita," she ordered grandly.
+
+"I tell you a nice little story, then you go downstairs on tippy toes,
+yes?"
+
+"But Vita dear, I did so want to stay up here," pouted Nora.
+
+"It is no good up here. All crazy like, and make you scared--awful."
+This was said in a very positive tone.
+
+"Why? What should I be afraid of? I slept alone at boarding school and
+the winds made dreadful noises sometimes." protested Nora.
+
+"Never mind. You be Vita's good baby and Vita give you nice--very good
+cake tomorrow," coaxed the woman, who now seemed anxious to leave the
+attic herself. She stirred uneasily.
+
+"Well," sighed Nora, "I suppose I can't have any peace if I don't." She
+threw down the coverlet. "But see, my little clock says eleven, and I
+don't want to disturb anyone on my very first night. You go down
+whatever way you came up, Vita; and I'll creep down the front way."
+
+The woman's relief was so evident Nora scarcely knew whether to be
+grateful or suspicious.
+
+"Now everything be all right," whispered Vita happily, "and you sleep
+just like the angel. Here Cap, you go very still," and she patted the
+dog with a little shove that urged him toward the door. He understood,
+evidently, for very quietly indeed he shuffled down, his four feet
+softer than velvet slippers, as he carried his huge body down the
+darkened stairway.
+
+Nora first poked her head out to make sure the coast was clear, then
+with a motion to Vita, who stood with candle in hand at the attic door,
+she swept down the stairs and entered the yellow room, into which a soft
+light from the hall fell in a welcoming path.
+
+The bed covers were turned down--Vita must have been determined that
+Nora should use that bed, and the window was properly opened, for the
+soft breeze stirred the scrim curtains, and a wonderful woodland scent
+stole into the room.
+
+"It is much better down here," Nora was forced to admit as she snuggled
+into the gold and blue coverlet. "I guess I was a nuisance to be so
+obstinate."
+
+A few minutes later a step in the hall glided to the electric light
+button, and the click that followed turned off the light.
+
+That must have been Ted, of course, and she must have known that Nora
+was now safely tucked in the comfortable bed in the guest room.
+
+"She was waiting for me too," mused Nora with a twinge of compunction.
+"I do wonder why they made such a fuss about me staying in the attic?"
+It was delicious to have every one anxious about her,--so short a time
+ago no one but the Circle Angel at the Baily School seemed to care
+whether she slept in her bed or out on the old, tattered hammock, that
+Barbara wanted to make a tree climber out of; and now in this lovely
+little bungalow, called The Nest, there were so many beds for her she
+couldn't choose.
+
+All the same, with the insistence of her fancies, visions of goblins and
+goo-gees up in the attic pranced through her excited brain and made the
+queerest pictures. She shivered as she remembered them.
+
+"But Vita is nothing like a spirit worker," mused the child. "And she is
+so kind and seems so fond of me." Then she had an inspiration.
+
+"I have it," she all but exclaimed aloud. "Vita knows what is wrong and
+is afraid I will find out. She is not frightened at it or she would not
+go prowling around in the dark," continued the reasoning, "but she has a
+secret and it is in that attic."
+
+As if this conclusion settled all disturbing doubts, Nora humped over
+once or twice and then gave in to the sleep her tired little self was so
+sorely in need of.
+
+It was the end of a long and too well filled day. She had left the
+select school with all the instructions of the Misses Baily fairly
+hissing in her ears. Then there was Barbara's fun making, in the way of
+a train letter with all sorts of wild premonitions (they were funny but
+somehow the train incidents took on the threats of danger Barbara had
+outlined). But after all, no one had kidnapped her and here she
+was--yes, asleep in the big fluffy bed in the lovely yellow room.
+
+A whistle--Jerry's--brought her back. The daylight was streaming in
+through that wonderful dew laden vine. And oh, the scent!
+
+It was not flowers but woodlands. A bird chirped a polite good morning,
+and without the usual eye rubbing Nora was sitting up straight and
+silently thanking the Maker of good things for such a wonderful day.
+
+For the first time in her life she felt that her clothes were not
+appropriate, and it was some moments before she could decide just which
+little gown to appear in. They really seemed out of place in that rugged
+country--her laces and ribbons and fine fussings.
+
+"I suppose the Girl Scouts do wear practical things," she reflected,
+"but that horrid khaki!" The thought sent a little shudder through the
+small, frail shoulders, and Nora, donning her Belgian blue, with brown
+sandals and two colored socks, was ready, presently, to meet her newly
+adopted relations. Cap was at her door when she opened it, and this,
+more than anything else, sent a thrill of joy to her heart. Even a
+wonderful big dog to welcome her when any dog would surely want to be
+out doors with Jerry on such a morning!
+
+"Come along, Bob," called a man's voice from the lower hall. "We can
+hardly spare time to eat--there is so much to see this morning."
+
+Nora was beside him as he continued:
+
+"The kittens are tumbling out of their box, the puppies are fighting
+over a feather, the chicks are testing their strength on a nice, lively,
+fat little worm, and oh yes! the calf jumped over the moon--the moon
+being Ted's home made gate," he finished, with that boyish laugh that
+always made the house ring merrily.
+
+Vita was just coming into the dining room with the muffins as Nora
+passed her. There was no mistaking the sly wink--the big dark eyes
+fairly sparkled glints as the maid signalled Nora not to say anything
+about the attic episode. Nora smiled and nodded, and then the muffins
+were placed before Mrs. Ted.
+
+"Sleep well, dear?" asked that lady presently.
+
+"Wonderfully," replied Nora, just a bit cautiously.
+
+"I heard you come down stairs and was rather glad you changed your
+mind," continued the hostess, while she poured Jerry's coffee. "It is
+much pleasanter on the second floor."
+
+For a moment Nora wondered whether this was being said to disguise the
+real happening. Did Mrs. Manton know that Vita had gone up to rouse her?
+
+"Maybe rain today," interrupted the maid, although the sun shone
+brightly at the moment.
+
+"Now Vittoria!" objected Jerry. "You ought to know better than to say
+rain when I have to go away out to the back woods, and I want to have
+some real work done today." He glanced over his shoulder at the
+streaming sunlight. "You're a fraud, or else you are not awake yet," he
+went on. "There is no more sign of rain than of snow."
+
+"I agree with you for once, Jerry," chimed in Ted. "The grass was
+knitted with cobwebs, the sun came up grey, and besides all that the
+jelly jelled. Now Vita, you see you are completely left. It is not going
+to rain."
+
+Vita laughed good naturedly. "Then I say it is goin' to shine," she
+added, and Nora now felt certain her talk had been made to interrupt the
+comment on the night before.
+
+Breakfast passed off in a gale of pleasantries. The home of the Mantons
+seemed jollier every moment, to Nora.
+
+"How about the woods?" asked Jerry, while they lingered over the coffee.
+
+"I'm ready," replied Ted, "and I'm sure Nora will want to come."
+
+"Oh yes," with a glance at her inadequate costume. "Will this dress be
+all right?"
+
+"If it's the strongest you have with you," replied Ted. "But we have
+some very saucy briars and brush. We must see about a real woodsy outfit
+for you." She paused a moment, then continued, "I am sure you will like
+the Girl Scouts when you get to know more about them. I know a group of
+the girls and to my thinking they are the real thing in girls."
+
+Nora flushed slightly. One point she had made up her mind on. She was
+not going to lose her identity by joining in with a group of girls who,
+she imagined, just did as they were told, and apparently had no ideas of
+their own. Nora had seen some of the Girl Scout literature and it had
+not impressed her favorably. It was plain and practical, while she
+longed for novelty.
+
+"Well, Bob is going to be my scout, at any rate," chimed in Jerry, quick
+to sense possible embarrassment. The shade of Nora's cheeks gave him his
+cue. "We won't talk about the regular Scouts until--well, until later,"
+he finished, in the foolish way he had of making a boy of himself. It
+was rather foolish, but so jolly. He would wind up everything in just
+the way Nora never expected, as if his words said themselves.
+
+The visitor was conscious now of something unpleasant stealing in upon
+her. Would Mrs. Manton oblige her to be different? Couldn't she dream
+and play and fancy all the wonderful things she had been storing up for
+so long? Wasn't this her dream vacation?
+
+Nannie, that play mother of hers, _she_ knew would not want her to
+change her peculiar characteristics.
+
+This sort of reasoning flashed before her mind as the party prepared for
+a day in the woods.
+
+So the little girl in Belgian blue went along with the big man in his
+knickers and brown blouse, and with the young woman in her service
+uniform.
+
+Nora made an odd little figure, but she was, as she had always been, a
+picture of a girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE WOODS AT ROCKY LEDGE
+
+
+Out in the woods!
+
+Forgotten was the dread idea of a Scout uniform or the possible program
+of a Scout ritual. Nora romped with Cap, discovering new delights at
+every few paces and only pausing to exchange salutations with birds,
+bees and butterflies. The sky was as blue as her gown, and her eyes
+matched the entire scheme. Her golden hair tossed in the wind like new
+corn silk, and when Jerry and Ted slyly inspected their charge at a safe
+distance, a most comprehensive nod of a pair of wise heads told volumes
+to the woodlands and the surrounding Nature audience.
+
+Yes, Nora would do. Now life at the Nest seemed complete. Even this
+dreamy, romantic little bit of humanity was a real child, and to the
+pair of adopted parents she seemed as beautiful as a wild flower.
+
+"Now Ted, you just hold back on that Scout stuff," Jerry had the
+temerity to suggest. "We don't want to scare her off, first shot. And
+you can see she's opposed."
+
+"She doesn't understand," replied Ted. "But, of course, there is no need
+to urge her. No hurry, at any rate."
+
+"I don't know as I like the tom-boy idea," continued Jerry. "She's very
+pretty just as she is."
+
+Ted laughed knowingly. "You're the boy who pulls down the shades rather
+than say 'no' to the peddlers," she reminded him. "It is easy to
+understand why you are opposing the Scouts."
+
+He adjusted his tripod and seemed to have found something very absorbing
+at that moment. Nevertheless, his big shoulders shook, and his curly
+head wagged a little suspiciously.
+
+They were surveying the end of a big strip of woodland. All over the
+young forest could be seen the yellow stripes that marked the trees that
+were to be spared, while those unmarked were doomed for the woodman's
+ax. Birds liked the yellow-banded trees best, to judge from the perches
+they made upon such, but of course, they could not have known that the
+other, not so fortunate, needed their musical sympathy to make less
+gloomy the approaching execution.
+
+"See! Just see!" Nora called, running back from the wild grape-vine
+cave. "Do come over and see this--little play house. It's perfect as can
+be, with vine draperies, and moss carpet, and real wild-rose decoration.
+Cap led me to it, I guess it's his secret place." She was panting with
+sheer joy. The woods were new to the girl from the boarding school,
+where walks were confined to the limits of neuritis and neuralgia as
+"enjoyed" by the Baily Sisters.
+
+"Cap'll show you," replied Jerry. "He has nothing to do but hunt while
+Ted and I work for our living."
+
+"Oh, could I help?" Nora felt like an intruder upon their industry.
+
+"Not just today, but pretty soon. Perhaps the day after." This was
+another of Jerry's characteristic replies. Nora understood them better
+now.
+
+"But it is real fun--fun to look through that spy glass. Do you have
+cobwebs in there?"
+
+Asking this brought back to her mind the cobweb nest in the attic.
+Jerry's reply, however, forestalled further reflection in that direction
+at the moment.
+
+"Some day, pretty soon, perhaps the day after tomorrow," he laughed
+again, "I'll show you all about this and the cobwebs. Ted has some town
+stuff to attend to; and listen, Bobbs" (he stepped over and whispered in
+Nora's ear), "Ted is a perfect terror if she is held too late in the
+woods. She would starve us to death, like as not, if I didn't get back
+before the clock cooled striking. So you and Cap just run along and find
+out what the fairies want from the village, while we mark a few more
+spots."
+
+Was there ever such a jolly man? Once again he had quickly avoided
+embarrassment to Nora. He would not even let her think she should be
+useful.
+
+"Yes," called Mrs. Manton from her position astride a small white birch,
+"you and Cap have a good time, Nora. He will teach you to explore."
+
+Willingly Nora ran back to the bower she had discovered. Surely it had
+been fashioned by elves and fairies, for it was perfect in every detail.
+Unconscious of time, she flitted about making a little window in the
+wild grape vine, and fashioning a door between the hazel-nut boughs.
+
+A murmuring song escaped her lips, while Cap now and then yelped
+sharply, impatient to be understood and receive attention.
+
+"Why, Cap!" asked Nora in reply to one of these outbursts, "I don't
+quite understand your language. What is it?"
+
+The big dog was vainly trying to make Nora see a nest of late sparrows.
+The tiny feathered babies could just stretch their little heads above
+the rim of the straw cup of a nest they cuddled in, and when Cap found
+them he knew he should notify somebody. The bush was so low, although it
+was safely sheltered by the thick vines, and a wild trumpet vine loaned
+two beautiful flowers to cheer the little birds during their mother's
+absence. Still, Cap felt certain it was dangerous for such tiny
+creatures to be there in the very path of any wild, rough animal
+happening by.
+
+Nora had never seen such baby birds before. First, she wanted to fondle
+them, but Cap gave warning and she desisted. Then, she wanted to feed
+them, as if birds could eat the black berries she offered them. But
+presently the mother bird flew into the bower with such a wild, shrill
+call, Nora knew her own presence was not desired so near the baby birds,
+so she followed Cap out into the clearance. As she did she saw
+approaching a group of girls, and they wore the Girl Scout uniform.
+
+At the sight something within Nora seemed to tighten up. The girls were
+coming straight to the bower and their laughing voices had the strange
+effect of all but chilling Nora.
+
+Without waiting to exchange so much as a smile she called Cap and ran
+off to the surveyor's camp.
+
+"Well," she heard one girl exclaim, as she sped away, "one would think
+we were--Indians."
+
+Nora's ears stung as her cheeks flamed.
+
+"There! Wasn't that just what one might expect? As if a girl couldn't do
+just as she pleased in the woodlands! And they were her own Cousin
+Jerry's lands too," Nora scoffed.
+
+"What's the matter, Nora?" asked Mrs. Manton, as she panting, sank down
+on a freshly-cut stump. "You don't mean to tell me you are actually
+afraid of those little girls, just because they wear uniforms?"
+
+"Oh, no, Cousin Ted, I am not afraid of them," her voice would shake
+somehow, "but I didn't know them."
+
+"I see. Well, we must all get acquainted in these pretty parts. The
+birds and the furry things never wait for an introduction," replied Ted,
+kindly.
+
+"Come along with me, Bobbs," called Jerry, who was packing up his
+instruments. "I need help with this chain; it is bound to snarl."
+
+"Jerry!" called out Mrs. Ted rather sharply. "You really must not
+interfere every time I attempt to tell Nora something useful. I want her
+to know the Girl Scouts, and the sooner she makes up her mind to do so
+the happier she will be. The Scouts are all over this place you know,
+Jerry," and the laughter of the girls up at the bower attested to the
+truth of that statement. "Anyone who is not interested in Scouting will
+have a poor chance of a real vacation in the woodlands," concluded Mrs.
+Manton.
+
+"But we are going to scout," insisted the man with the tripod on his
+shoulder. "The only thing is, we are going to do it in our own way.
+Isn't that so, Bobbs?"
+
+Young and simple minded as was Nora, she was fully conscious of a
+difference of opinions regarding her management. Jerry was surely siding
+with her, even in her whims, whereas Ted, mother-like, felt the
+necessity of giving advice.
+
+That was it. She had never before known anything the least bit
+mother-like. Would she find the relationship too irksome?
+
+There was the hint of a tear in her blinking eye when she pulled the
+kinky tape out for Jerry and felt it snap back into its leather case.
+After all, things were not exactly as she had pictured them at the Nest.
+First, she was dragged down from her attic--she felt now she had been
+dragged down in the very middle of the night by that great, big Vita,
+and now, there were those horrid Girl Scouts being held up as examples
+for her to follow and imitate. Well, she would never be a Scout. Each
+time the question presented itself she felt more decidedly against it.
+She would always have big Cousin Jerry to stand by her, and if Cousin
+Ted----
+
+"Want to come to town with me, dear?" called the owner of the name she
+was opposing.
+
+"Sure she does. She is going to ride Cyclone. Aren't you, Bobbs?" This
+was from Jerry.
+
+"I couldn't ride a big horse," faltered the confused girl.
+
+"We will go in our handsome ca--our little tame flivver," interrupted
+Ted. "When you want to ride a horse you will have plenty of time to
+practice." Mrs. Manton had assembled her tools. Nora marvelled at the
+strong hands that could so skillfully wield the sharp hatchet and the
+dangerous-looking trimming knife. Into the loop at her belt Ted
+carelessly slipped the glittering tools, and as she did so Nora recalled
+the sight of the dainty hands she had been accustomed to admiring. What
+would the ladies who visited the school say to a person like Cousin Ted?
+
+They were ready to leave for the cottage. Over the hill the Girl Scouts
+were calling their mysterious "Wha-hoo," and to Nora it sounded like a
+call to battle. What had at first been merely an indifference was now
+assuming the proportions of actual dislike. How was Nora to know she was
+a very much spoiled little girl? And how was she to guess what the cost
+of her change of heart would mean to her?
+
+She was a total stranger to the word "snob." Her training had been one
+straight line of avoiding this, that, and the other thing; but as for
+doing this, that and everything, no place was given in the curriculum.
+
+Mrs. Manton, herself a product of the most modern college, knew the
+weakness of little Nora's character at a glance, but to introduce
+strength and purpose! To bend the vine without crushing the tendrils!
+
+This very first day was marked with a danger signal. If Nora slighted
+the Scouts, they who came almost daily to Ted for information and
+companionship, there was sure to be trouble. It was this surety that
+prompted Ted to say with decision:
+
+"The sooner Nora gets acquainted the happier she will be."
+
+Meanwhile the girls of Chickadee Patrol had all but forgotten about the
+stranger. They were after specimens and had discovered more than one new
+bird's nest. Cameras were clicking, notes being taken, and so many
+interesting matters were being attended to, it was not strange that the
+sight of one little girl in a pretty blue frock, with a disdainful
+expression on her otherwise attractive face, might have been forgotten
+for the time.
+
+If there were really fairies in those woods they should have intervened
+just then, for it would have been so much easier for Nora to have met
+the Scouts as companions, whereas she, holding away from the very idea
+of organization, kept building up a dislike which threatened to cause
+her much unhappiness.
+
+The woodlands were broad enough for both to roam, but it was inevitable
+that both should meet some day, and, under what circumstances?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A PRINCE IN HIDING
+
+
+When Nora wrote to Barbara she drew word pictures of the beauties at
+Woodland Wilds. She shed a tear of real joy when writing about Cousin
+Jerry and Captain, and when she fondly recited the virtues of Cousin Ted
+she felt she put more in that one word "Motherly" than could otherwise
+have been conveyed.
+
+It was in the writing of that letter that she took account of her actual
+self, for in wording it she had naturally summed up.
+
+"I am not just sure whether I entirely suit or not," she told Barbara.
+"Sometimes I feel so different. Of course they all love me, even Vita
+the cook, and I love them fondly, but don't you know, Babs, you always
+told me I saw 'foohey' and you would not explain what it was to be that
+way? But I guess I am, whatever it is, for a lot of alterations have
+already been ordered," she wrote.
+
+"My new outdoor clothes have arrived," the letter ran, "they are of
+brown cloth" (she avoided the use of the word khaki) "and they will
+stand a lot of hard wear. Cousin Jerry says we get them that color and
+so we won't scare the birds and other woodland creatures. They are
+supposed to think we are part of the landscape."
+
+Nora then told of the attic, and its chest of treasures, and added she
+expected to try on a couple of outfits the very first day she was free
+from accompanying the surveying party.
+
+All of which showed the visitor was "taking root," as Jerry would have
+said.
+
+A long tramp out in a marshy territory was to be undertaken by the two
+veterans, Ted and Jerry, but because of the bad footing Nora was not
+asked to go along. This provided the very opportunity Nora had been
+waiting for, and hardly had the reliable old flivver "fluvved" away,
+then she hurried up to the attic in search of a costume.
+
+"Come on, Cap," she whispered, eluding Vita, but unwilling to go up in
+the attic alone. She had not forgotten the suspicions of her first
+night.
+
+Too glad to obey, Cap led the way, and presently Nora forgot even the
+"spook cabinet" in her interest over the open costume chest.
+
+Things were mussed and musty, rumpled and wrinkled and crinkled; but
+what colors and what a lot of bright tinsel!
+
+"Oh joy," she exclaimed, dragging from the tangles a real Fauntleroy
+costume. "I have always wanted to see how I would look dressed in this
+sort of outfit," she thought, for the black velvet "knickers," the
+little velvet jacket, and the lace blouse were all there, and yes, there
+was a wonderful, bright silk scarf to go around the waist.
+
+The cap was prettiest of all, and it was resting on Nora's yellow curls
+before Cap could possibly make out what the whole proceedings meant. He
+stood over in his corner and blinked, but Nora insisted on having his
+opinion.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful, Cap? And don't you like Nora in it?" she demanded.
+He gave one of his peculiar exclamations rather louder than she had
+expected, and to prevent the sounds from reaching Vita's ears, Nora put
+both arms around Cap's neck and hugged him into silence.
+
+She was very much excited. Ever since her arrival at the Nest she had
+been planning a private masquerade, and now the time had come for her to
+indulge in it.
+
+Fanciful dream child that she was, the character of little Lord
+Fauntleroy had always strongly appealed to her, and as for most girls
+the boy's costume had a peculiar charm for her heroic ventures into the
+world of make-believe.
+
+"We'll take them down stairs," she told Cap. "We can dress much more
+comfortably in my room."
+
+Poking her head out to make sure Vita was not around, she tucked the
+velvets and laces into her arms and hurried to the next floor. Seldom
+had she locked the hall door, but she did so now, dismissing Cap
+peremptorily, for there was no need of his protection on the second
+floor.
+
+"I suppose it's too big," she reasoned, when the little knickers were
+pulled up as high as the button and button hole line. Yes, it was big,
+this costume had been worn by a gay lady at a big country club dance,
+and little Nora was scarcely a sample of the personality for which the
+jaunty outfit had been created.
+
+But mere size did not worry her. It was effect that she craved. The lacy
+blouse fell into place quite naturally, and it did look boyish, while
+the overblouse of black velvet completed the Fauntleroy picture.
+
+"If the buckles would only stay buckled," she sighed, trying for the
+third time to fasten the knee straps and keep them that way. It was not
+pretty at all to have them slink down below her knees, like an untidy
+schoolboy; and a pin had no possible effect on the heavy, velvety
+finish.
+
+"I know," breathed Nora, "I'll roll them." And she did that skillfully;
+for in the season just past many and many a sock had she rolled and they
+had stayed, although Barbara never could acquire the same knack.
+
+It was all finally finished, and she inspected herself in the mirror,
+slanted to the very last angle to show the full length. A pat of the
+cap, a brash of the tie and a swish of the flying scarf gave the
+finishing touches.
+
+Really Nora made "a perfectly stunning" little Lord Fauntleroy. Had she
+been more accustomed to the sayings of the day she might well have
+exclaimed, "All dressed up and no place to go," but her culture admitted
+of no such expressive parlance. Instead, she asked herself in the
+looking glass: "Wonder if I dare go outside? It is so comfortable to
+wear this style"; and she skipped around as every other girl on earth
+has ever done the very moment she felt relieved of the trammel of
+skirts.
+
+The morning was unusually quiet. Vita must be away picking greens, the
+surveyors were miles out, and there was no one but Cap to criticise. Why
+shouldn't she stroll out grandly in her princely costume?
+
+She did. The birds twittered and the rabbits scurried and the pet
+squirrel stood up and begged. But Nora was not feeding the animals this
+morning, instead, she flounced her lace sleeve in a most courtly gesture
+and passed on to the cedar tree grove. Cedars seemed more appropriate
+for velvets than did the other wild trees; besides, no underbrush grew
+in the cedar grove, and it was much safer for costly finery.
+
+On the rustic seat Nora felt exactly as she had felt the day Miss Baily
+took her to sit for her picture, except that she crossed her legs
+comfortably now, whereas, then, she was not even allowed to cross her
+hands.
+
+Presently the actress removed her (his) cap and poised it on the arm of
+the chair. Did Lord Fauntleroy go out in his grounds alone? Perhaps she
+should have called Cap to go along.
+
+Then came thoughts of Nannie. Why must she, little Nora, always be so
+far away from that pretty mother? And why did the picture life--the
+make-believe--charm her like some secret failing? Did other girls really
+like the horrid brown uniforms never pictured in books, that is, never,
+until very lately? So raced her unruly thoughts.
+
+Everything was so still, but Nora was not lonely--her own reflections
+kept her such noisy company that isolation had no terror for her. Just
+outside the cedar grove a strip of road waited for traffic. Few persons
+passed, but even woodlands must have roads, just as skies must have
+clouds.
+
+Feeling more at home in her costume every moment, Nora stepped proudly
+outside the grove into the clearance. A fat little hoptoad crossed the
+path, but otherwise the prince was lord of all he surveyed. The whole
+world was busy, evidently, and even a visiting prince attracted no
+attention in the wild woodlands.
+
+Nora wanted to whistle. She felt a prince, with hands in pockets
+inspecting his domain, would surely whistle, but she had never made much
+of a success at the wind song--it was Barbara who did all the whistling
+for both. Still, she tried now, and the sound wasn't any worse than the
+cracked call of the blue-jay, except that it did not carry so far.
+
+What would Barbara say to this game of characters? A companion would add
+to the possibilities of good times, Nora secretly admitted, but what
+companion could she find in these wilds?
+
+Just as a sense of loneliness came creeping over her she heard the
+leaves somewhere crackle. The next moment a girl appeared a few paces up
+the road, and called to her quickly: "Oh, I say boy! Have you seen the
+Girl Scouts----"
+
+The voice stopped as suddenly as it had started. The girl in uniform
+looked so surprised, Nora was conscious of scrutiny, even at the
+distance between them. She turned her head instinctively and so evaded a
+direct look; but presently the girl called again:
+
+"I am looking for the girls who are going over to the Ledge. Did you
+happen to see them pass this way?"
+
+"No," faltered Nora, in a voice not her own. "I just came along. I'm
+looking for a car----"
+
+"Oh, I saw one. It drove down the turn----"
+
+"Thanks," jerked out Nora, taking the cue to escape, and waving her hand
+in lieu of further conversation. She dodged behind the heavy elderberry
+bush and almost gasped in fright. What would a Girl Scout think of her
+in such a costume? Of course, she had no possible opportunity of seeing
+her face, and she surely could never recognize her again. Making
+positive she could get back to the Nest without again stepping out into
+the roadway, Nora sped back as quickly as her feet could carry her. It
+was always these Scouts; a sense of humiliation was now added to that of
+dislike. Would they all talk about her? Perhaps make fun of her or think
+her odd and foolish?
+
+Too inexperienced to realize that the entire blame was her own, Nora
+crept up to the flap-jack path that led directly to the cottage door.
+
+Here she was stopped again, for Vita sat out by the big stump, either
+counting or selecting something from her apron. So engrossed was she in
+her task she did not hear Nora's footfall, and this gave the "prince"
+another chance to escape detection. She darted back into the arbor and
+waited. The only other way to enter the house was at front and she might
+meet almost anyone in that way.
+
+Her game was losing its charm. She would have given much to be free of
+the finery and garbed again in her own simple clothes. It was rather
+mortifying to be considered queer, and that one saving grace, a sense of
+humor, was entirely lacking in the girl's make-up. Otherwise she might
+have jumped down from a tree and frightened Vita out of her wits, thus
+making a lark out of a difficulty.
+
+She waited impatiently. What could Vita be doing that so held her
+attention? Then the attic memories flashed back to Nora's mind and she
+wondered.
+
+"Cousin Ted leaves too much to that maid," she was deciding. "I might be
+able to help by keeping a lookout."
+
+But for what? Vita was surely trustworthy and even extremely kind to
+Nora, the intruder.
+
+A burr pricked the knee that refused to hold fast to the buckled finery.
+It must have been rather a nuisance to dress like that. Nora rolled the
+band tighter and lost her fancy hat in the effort.
+
+Voices!
+
+Girls' laughter. The Scouts, of course, and coming back toward the
+cottage!
+
+Without waiting to consider Vita's opinion, Nora sprang from her hiding
+place and darted up the path into the cottage.
+
+Voices within as well as without!
+
+Cousin Ted was back from the woods and had company. How could Nora reach
+her room without being seen?
+
+She crouched behind the kitchen cabinet, hoping the voices would leave
+the hall and enter the living room, but, evidently, there was a reason
+for delay, and the big seat was right at the foot of the stairway!
+
+Now Vita's flat slippers patted the stones and she was coming into the
+kitchen.
+
+Disgusted with the entire affair, Nora turned into the back stairway.
+She had never mounted those stairs, they were used only by the maid, but
+just now there seemed no other avenue of escape. She heard the shuffling
+feet of Vita as she climbed the bare treads.
+
+They were narrow and dark, only a small window cut in an opening
+somewhere allowed enough light to penetrate to make sure the steps were
+those of stairs. A narrow landing marked the line where the second floor
+must be. Then there was another turn, a sort of sharp twist in the queer
+ladder-like climb.
+
+Nora was too far up now to hear Vita's step in the kitchen.
+
+"But this must lead to the attic," she reasoned. "I may as well go on up
+as to go--down."
+
+Cobwebs a-plenty here. She jerked back from their tangles, fearing
+spiders and other crawling things.
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed. "I do wish I had not come this way. It's
+so--spooky!"
+
+At every step the darkness increased and the light dwindled. Reaching a
+good-sized platform, Nora stood, thankful to draw an easy breath. She
+could just about see that she had only one short flight of steps to go
+to reach a door.
+
+"I would never have believed this house was so high," she pondered. "I
+feel as if I came up from a cellar to a tower."
+
+Then, resolutely, the pilgrim started on again. Only a few steps and she
+found herself face to face with two doors. They were unpainted and each
+stood at angles from the landing.
+
+"Which?" she asked instinctively; for, while she wanted to reach the
+attic, she was careful to remember which way she had come in this
+crooked, gloomy place. Besides this, the attic was a mysterious part of
+that pretty house, Nora realized.
+
+"It must be all right to go in here--all of the rooms are ours and
+Cousin Ted said they were all kept clean."
+
+With this caution she pushed open one of the unpainted doors and stepped
+inside.
+
+She gasped! The place was in almost total darkness!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CAP TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+Where was she? What could be so black?
+
+Nora gasped--it was so stifling. Fumbling in the strange place her hand
+found the door and as she pressed against it she heard it shut!
+
+"Oh mercy!" she exclaimed aloud. "I'm shut in this awful place!"
+
+Now her eyes could make out the rafters. It was the attic, but what part
+of it? The faintest gleam of light breaking in from above followed the
+rough beams. The frightened girl fell back breathing hard and feeling
+faint. To faint in the attic! Surely that would be romantic! But she
+didn't want to faint all alone up there and maybe die and not be found
+for years, as she had read happened once to a bride who went up to look
+for her grandmother's quilt.
+
+She was so dizzy. She really must sit down. Not even a hazy fear of rats
+roused her, for it was unbearably hot and stuffy.
+
+"O-o-o-h!"
+
+That was the end of Nora for the time being. She succumbed to the first
+faint she had ever performed, and there was no one to see her, no one to
+rescue her, not one even to know where she was!
+
+Such a little prince!
+
+Velvets and ribbons brushed cobwebs and dust, as she slumped down,
+down----!
+
+Of all her life's dreams what she dreamed when she breathed again seemed
+the strangest. But it was all broken up like pieces of stars mashed into
+flashes of dazzling light, and there was no more head nor tail to it.
+All she could think of was how tired she was, and she knew she just had
+to sleep.
+
+If spiders had any talent for observing, those in that cubby hole would
+have had a wonderful story to tell to the crawling things in roof and
+rafters, but even they did not so much as try, with a web, to arouse the
+half-conscious child, and one lacy net was so near Nora's face her gasps
+of breath swayed and rocked the baby spider in its cradle.
+
+So there she was asleep now, and glad not to know!
+
+Downstairs supper had been prepared and everyone was waiting for Nora.
+
+Who had seen her? Where had she spent the afternoon?
+
+"Vita," said Jerry sharply, "you know you were not to let the child go
+off these grounds alone."
+
+"I no see her, never. She no come out from the house," protested the
+frightened Vita.
+
+"Well, we have got to search," decided Ted, her bronzed face plainly
+showing alarm, and her brown eyes blinking with unnamed fears.
+
+"Where has Cap been?" again demanded Jerry. "He should have been with
+her."
+
+"He went with the Scouts; they asked for him, and of course, I let him
+go as usual. I did not know Nora was going out, in fact, I thought she
+was going to write to her school mates," replied Ted. "But don't let us
+waste time. I'll take the north way, Vita you go by the Ledge, and
+Jerry, I suppose you will jump on a horse and scout every way."
+
+"Yes, I'll take Cap and send him on ahead." All the laugh was gone from
+Jerry's voice now. How quickly the cloud of Anxiety can darken the
+brightest home?
+
+More than an hour later all three searchers returned to the Nest and
+admitted they could not find Nora.
+
+"She couldn't be in the house, could she?" asked Ted, disconsolately.
+
+"We looked hastily, but it was best to do all the outdoor looking
+first," replied Jerry. "Do you suppose she went to visit anyone? Did she
+make friends with Alma and Wyn, our pet Scouts?"
+
+"I wish she had. There's that about the Scouts, they go in groups,"
+answered Ted, with feeling. "Let us look over the house more carefully.
+But why should she hide?" A loud bark from Cap answered that question.
+
+"Here! Cap knows where she is. Let him find her," exclaimed Jerry,
+joyfully.
+
+"It's at the kitchen door," added Ted, hurrying in that direction.
+
+"Quick, open the door, Vita!" commanded Jerry, while the dog barked
+wildly.
+
+Vita put a trembling hand on the door that led to the back stairs and
+opened into the kitchen. No sooner had she done so than Cap bounded past
+her, and the next moment the big dog and the forlorn little prince
+tumbled into the room.
+
+"Nora!" exclaimed both Jerry and Ted.
+
+"It isn't! It can't be!" faltered the surprised maid. "This is boy----"
+
+"Boy nothing!" almost shouted Jerry, so glad to see Nora in any guise
+that her strange costume interested him not at all.
+
+"The poor little darling," cried Ted, gathering the black velvet form up
+into her arms. "What ever happened to you, dear?"
+
+Nora brushed a dusty hand over her blinking eyes. "Oh, I am so glad I am
+saved. I thought I would surely die."
+
+"Up attic. Why baby! No one could die in our attic. Cap knew you were up
+there and if you had not tumbled down just when you did he would have
+gone through the wall to find you, wouldn't you, old fellow?" Jerry
+asked fondly.
+
+The Saint Bernard was in his native element at the rescue work, and he
+licked Nora's hand contentedly. Ted had gathered the child up into her
+arms and Vita was already busy getting a refreshing drink. Jerry,
+manlike, just looked on, happy beyond words, for in the bad hour
+previous he was a prey to keen anxiety, and during the process made up
+his mind in the future to keep Nora closer to the family circle at all
+times.
+
+Nora had not yet come to the point of talking. Her swoon and its
+consequent haziness left her in a daze, and with the mother-like arms
+about her, and the breath of Cap reviving her, and Cousin Jerry's big
+soft eyes encouraging her, the relief from her fright was slowly
+creeping over her and it was so delicious she had no idea of dispelling
+it with mere words.
+
+"I know," said Teddie softly, "you were playing parts, dressing up in
+the duds from the big chest."
+
+"Did you go to sleep in the trunk?" ventured Jerry, slyly.
+
+"No, I don't know just where I was--I was----" faltered Nora, now
+beginning to feel a little foolish in her boy's outfit.
+
+"She went up wrong stairs and I guess, maybe, she got lost in the big
+open attic," Vita volunteered, apparently anxious to forestall further
+questions.
+
+"No, it was not opened. It was shut tight--very tight," snapped Nora.
+She resented Vita's explanation. Somehow she felt Vita was to blame.
+
+"Then you must have struck the spook closet," said Jerry, his old happy
+tones ringing through the small kitchen. "Say Ted, let's get into the
+other room. Can you walk, Bobbs, or shall big Cousin Jerry carry you?"
+
+"Oh, I can walk all right," replied Nora, slipping to the floor from
+Teddie's lap. "But I was so stiff and cramped and--I guess I must have
+fainted."
+
+"You must have been up there all the time we were hunting for you, and
+the attic is always hot," added Ted. "I never thought of looking there."
+
+"But Cap did. He knew where you were the moment he came in the house,"
+said Jerry proudly. "I tell you, Cap is a regular life-saver. He will
+have to get another medal for this; even if he didn't drag you out of
+the spook cabinet, he did tumble in the kitchen with you."
+
+Both Jerry and Ted were too considerate to show surprise at Nora's
+appearance, but Vita could not or did not attempt to hide her
+astonishment.
+
+"Guess she thinks the fairies had you," said Jerry softly, when Vita
+stood in the doorway, her hands on her capable hips and her mouth wide
+open in a gasp of surprise. But Nora had an uncertain feeling that Vita,
+as sole tenant of the back stairway, should have made better
+arrangements than to have a door that would spring shut like that, right
+at the very top of the dark place.
+
+It was at this point a mistake was made. Nora did not express herself
+and Vita had no idea of explaining. Mr. and Mrs. Jerry were supposed to
+know all about the Nest, but did they! In the excitement of finding
+Nora, the actual hiding place was not being considered.
+
+Quickly as the little girl recovered her self-possession and took part
+in the conversation, everyone enjoyed a good hearty laugh, naturally led
+by Jerry.
+
+"What special kind of prince were you, Bobbs?" he asked jovially. "I did
+not know they hid in dark attics."
+
+"Oh, yes they did," contradicted Ted. "Don't you remember the princes in
+the tower?"
+
+"I don't, but it doesn't matter. They must have been in a tower or you
+would not have included the fact in your college course," replied Jerry,
+always ready to tease on that score. Whenever Ted found a new specimen
+in the woods, or questioned about a strange bird, he would invariably
+ascribe the matter to "her college course."
+
+Nora was anxious to get out of the ill-fated costume. She wanted to run
+upstairs and change, now that her knees had stopped shaking, but Ted
+insisted she take her supper just as she was, and readily made a merry
+time out of the near catastrophe. Again Nora missed the point--no sense
+of humor was a sad lack in so active a girl.
+
+Cap regarded her with an eye almost twinkling. Did he know the attic
+secret that she had been unable even to realize was a secret?
+
+"Your clothes fit pretty well," said Jerry, "but I think I like you best
+in your Little Girl Blue dress. Guess, after all, girls really shouldn't
+wear----"
+
+"Now, there you go again, Jerry Manton," interrupted Ted. "As if the
+costume had anything to do with Nora getting lost."
+
+And all the while Nora was thinking: "If they only knew." But she had
+never had any one to confide in, except Barbara, and now she did not
+know exactly how to tell her story. Besides, how silly it would be to
+say she had actually been out in the roadway in the Fauntleroy clothes?
+And if they ever knew she had been seen and spoken to by a Girl Scout!
+
+The fear of humiliation crushed back any desire to tell the whole story
+and so it remained as it appeared, an incident of no more importance
+than a case of being lost in the attic.
+
+All the horrors of the black hole, all the terrors of her fright and
+faintness, besides what actually happened when she finally burst through
+that door and all but fell head-long down the dark stairs--this Nora
+crushed back from her lips, and only dared to think of it as something
+she would write in her secret diary.
+
+Perhaps she would tell Barbara. It was too thrilling to remain a secret
+with no one but herself to ponder upon it.
+
+A refreshing bath, more beef tea and a bedtime story told by the
+affectionate Cousin Teddie one hour later, all but dispelled the trying
+memory.
+
+The story was one read from a favorite woodland series, in which
+children, birds and furry things found days of happiness in the carefree
+hours, far away from artificial restrictions of "Do" and "Don't."
+
+The girls mentioned in the story were not spoken of as Scouts, but Nora
+suspected they must have been very much like such in ideals.
+
+"You see," said Teddie gently, when she had finished the interesting
+story, "girls who love nature find real joy in studying the woods and
+learning to love the woodland creatures. You have had no chance to know
+what such pleasure means, dear."
+
+"No," said Nora faintly. And at that moment she decided to put on her
+new uniform the very next morning, and then go forth with Cousin Ted and
+Cousin Jerry in quest of the adventures promised.
+
+"I guess," she began timidly, "it is better, Cousin Teddie, for me to go
+along with you every day, if you don't mind."
+
+"Why, I can't bear to leave you home, either with Vita or to your own
+resources," declared Ted. "But I didn't want to urge you. Your
+experience today may be a good thing in the end--it may help to cure you
+of the artificiality you have been absorbing so deeply. I will have to
+write your mother a bit of advice. I do not believe her little daughter
+is getting the sort of education best for her. Now, roll over and go to
+sleep." She pressed a fond kiss on the warm cheek. "And Nora love, don't
+bother about dreaming," finished Mrs. Jerry Manton, in a tone of voice
+not learned during her famous "college course."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE STORY ALMA DID NOT TELL
+
+
+Under a canvas tent sheltered by a particularly broad chestnut tree and
+surrounded by a group of beautiful white birch, the girls of Chickadee
+Patrol, Girl Scouts, were listening, all attention, to the very wildest
+tale they had ever given ears to.
+
+Alma was talking. "Honestly girls," she insisted, "he was a real prince,
+dressed in black velvet and a beautiful jaunty cap----"
+
+"Alma! Alma!" shouted her companions in derision.
+
+"Where did you see the fairies? Just imagine in broad daylight in the
+woodlands----" teased one.
+
+"Then, I shall not tell you anything more about it," desisted the abused
+one. "As if I wasn't surprised. Why, I was so dumfounded I could not ask
+him if he saw you, and I was miles behind the crowd."
+
+"Now girls, let Alma tell," chirped Doro, in her lispy voice. "Go ahead,
+Al. _I_ believe you saw Prince Charming."
+
+"Was he old enough to ride a horse?" asked Laddie, christened Eulalia.
+She was defying her dentist on a piece of fudge two days old.
+
+"Honestly, girls," began Alma again, "I never saw a boy so beautiful.
+Light curls----"
+
+"Oh!!!" came a chorus that stopped the narrator and sent her pouting
+over to the bed couch, where she pouted still more.
+
+"Then, all right, I am absolutely through," she declared quite as if she
+meant it.
+
+"Now just see what you have done," mourned Treble. She was so tall the
+girls always considered her in that clef. "Don't you mind them, Allie. I
+know perfectly well there are even flying cupids in the big woodlands,
+and I fully expect to bring a couple home to lunch----"
+
+Cushions in one big bang stopped Treble. At this rate Alma's story would
+never be published, orally or otherwise.
+
+In the Scout tent the evening was being spent in recreation: hence the
+fun they were having with Alma. At a table fashioned from an upside-down
+packing case, with real hand carved legs where the boards were knocked
+out and the hatchet braces left standing, sat three of the Chickadees,
+discussing the new Girl Scout stories.
+
+"I just love the first," insisted Thistle whose name was as Scotch as
+the emblem. "I liked the mill story and I just loved that wild, exciting
+time the girls had trying to win back--was it Dagmar?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember," chimed in Betta. They were referring to the first
+volume, "The Girl Scout Pioneers," but others of the group spoke up for
+their particular choice of the series, naming, "The Girl Scouts at
+Bellaire" and "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest."
+
+"You may have those," offered Doro, "but I perfectly love this." She
+held up the last book published. It was entitled "The Girl Scouts at
+Camp Comalong."
+
+"Why is that such a prize?" inquired Pell.
+
+"Oh, haven't you read it? Well, it is a real story of the most
+interesting girl, Peg of the Hills."
+
+This brought about a general discussion of the entire series, and
+although the method being used is not usually employed to remind readers
+of the other books of a series, perhaps, since the girls were speaking
+for themselves, it will be accepted.
+
+Alma was whispering her Prince Charming story into the ears of Doro.
+Doro was accredited the very best listener among the Chicks and she had
+not the faintest idea of interrupting the story teller. Of course, it
+was Nora whom Alma had encountered, and it was not difficult to
+understand why her companions should discredit the tale. A prince in the
+woodlands, indeed!
+
+"Louder, Alma," begged Treble, catching only enough of the story to make
+her curious.
+
+"Well, you won't believe me."
+
+"We will! We will! Hear! Hear!" shouted Betta, whose full appellation
+was none other than Betta-be-good, given because she had a habit of
+lecturing.
+
+"She did see a real prince," chimed in Doro. "And he did wear buckles
+and laces and everything."
+
+"Where, oh where, fair maid? Lead me thither and hither and yon," moaned
+Pell Mell. "Next to a movie star I love a prince best," she finished
+dramatically, although it was common knowledge that Pell loved nothing
+so well as rushing about and falling over adventures. She actually fell
+over the Ridge, that is as far down as the big flat rock, before her
+chums decided she was hereafter to be known as Pell Mell.
+
+"That is all there is to tell," announced Alma, in a tone tinctured with
+finality. She knew perfectly well the girls would never rest until they
+had sought out the darling prince, and she also knew it would be lots of
+fun to make them "sit up and beg" for the details they had been scoffing
+at.
+
+"Where, Alma?"
+
+"Near the bend, Alma?"
+
+"Wasn't it over by the Nest, Al?"
+
+"She said she saw him over by the Ledge."
+
+All this and much more was thrown out as bait, but in the parlance of
+the tribe, Alma did not "bite," she merely picked up a discarded book
+and proceeded to read.
+
+"Well, there was a prince, I'm sure of that," persisted Pell, determined
+to make Alma repeat her story.
+
+"Let's go prince hunting tomorrow," suggested Betta.
+
+"With Treble's moth scoop?" joked Wyn.
+
+"I suppose none of you happen to know that Mrs. Jerry Manton has a
+visitor," spoke Doro. She gave the statement a tone implying: "Why
+wouldn't the prince be the visitor?"
+
+"Oh, that's so," drawled Thistle. "Maybe it's the duke."
+
+This brought out a new shout of nonsense.
+
+"Duke!" roared Betta. "Keep on and we'll have him on the throne."
+
+"There are no more thrones," informed Pell. "Don't you know the war made
+every thing democratic?"
+
+This turned the joke into a serious moment, for even the rollicking
+Scouts did not feel inclined to enlarge upon so serious a thought.
+
+Presently everyone was speculating upon the possibility of the little
+stranger being the one entertained by the Mantons.
+
+"Couldn't we call?" suggested Wyn. "Mrs. Manton is always lovely to us,
+and if she has such a little cherub on her hands we ought to help her
+care for him."
+
+"Cherub, Wynnie! Why, we would have to get a cage for anything like that
+in this camp. He would be eaten by bugs, moths and beetles." A dash at a
+flying thing confirmed this opinion from Treble.
+
+"Now, if you all have finished your skylarking I would like to study,"
+announced Alma. "I have to learn all that new class lesson, and I hope
+to get out of the Tenderfoot tribe before next week. No fun swimming in
+a barrel." She referred to the water restrictions of "Tenderfoots."
+
+"Hush girls! Alma is thinking," joked Pell. "Please don't interrupt the
+spell----"
+
+Poor Alma could stand the teasing no longer. She picked up her manual
+and headed for the tent occupied by those very studious Scouts who chose
+the company of the leader to that of the distracting girls.
+
+"Chickadees never scratch," fired Betta as Alma stepped over protruding
+feet and reached the tent flap. "Now Chick-a-dee, Peep! Peep! Pretty for
+the ladies----"
+
+But the girl with the manual was gone.
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Pell, when the titters subsided.
+
+"She saw something different, that's sure," replied Treble.
+
+"She told me all about it," put in Thistle proudly. "And it was really a
+wonderful child all done up in black velvets and ribbons," she declared.
+
+"I see nothing to do but ask Mrs. Manton about it," suggested Wyn. "It
+looks like a first class lot of fun."
+
+"Ask her if she is entertaining a boy in velvet pants?" said Treble, so
+foolishly, the girls all but rolled under the table and the oil lamp
+shook dangerously in the merriment.
+
+"When they're velvet they're never pants," spoke Wyn, as soon as
+speaking amounted to anything.
+
+"Trousers," amended Treble.
+
+"Nor those," objected Pell. "When they have cute little buckles and go
+with a jaunty cap----"
+
+"They're knickers," finished Betta.
+
+"Not a--tall," shouted Treble. "I know better than that myself. You're
+thinking of golf. Didn't I see Lord Fauntleroy play his Dearest?"
+
+"Did you really? Well, what did _he_ call call them?" demanded Thistle.
+She had been so busy enjoying the fun that this was her first attempt at
+making any.
+
+"I have it," sang out Laddie. "They're bloomers."
+
+"Oh no, rompers," insisted Thistle. "Rompers are much prettier."
+
+"What ever would you girls have done this evening if Alma's little story
+did not furnish you with debate material," scoffed Doro.
+
+"The story Alma never told," chanted Lad.
+
+"All the same," declared Treble, "it is perfectly delicious. Who's going
+to make the call on Mrs. Jerry Manton?"
+
+The shout that followed this question brought a protest from the next
+tent where candidates were studying manuals.
+
+"Let's take a vote on it," suggested Thistle, when quiet seemed
+possible. "Since every one wants to go and we haven't heard the Mantons
+were going to give a picnic or anything like that--why--the best thing
+to do is to draw lots."
+
+"How tragic! Draw lots! I say we make it numbers from Doro's cap. Here
+girls, get busy and numb."
+
+A page of note paper was quickly numbered and torn into squares. Then
+the lot was tossed into Doro's cap--it was the deepest for the little
+girl did not wear her hair bobbed. When the cap was filled she was the
+one chosen to hold it, and upon the highest chair she presently stood
+while the girls jumped for numbers. The four highest were to constitute
+the committee and the lot fell to Betta, Pell, Wyn and Thistle.
+
+It was arranged that these four should go in the morning to call upon
+Mrs. Jerry Manton, their good friend and erstwhile preceptor in
+woodlore, and it was fully expected that the young visitor would then
+naturally be introduced.
+
+And this was the very day that Nora donned her new service suit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A MISADVENTURE
+
+
+The idea of meeting a prince (the girls easily believed the pretty boy
+in the velvet suit was at least a near-prince) brought to the Chickadees
+a delicious thrill.
+
+"You know," reasoned Thistle next morning, "the Manton's are government
+people, and there are lots of foreign nobles down at Washington."
+
+"That's so," agreed Doro. "He might have come up to the woods for his
+health."
+
+The tent was quickly made ready for inspection and when the woodcraft
+class was dismissed, the girls were free to make the all-important call.
+
+It was but a short distance from Camp Chickadee to the Nest, and the
+four girls, constituting the committee, covered the ground speedily.
+
+Vita answered the knock and told Pell, who was spokeswoman, that: "Mrs.
+Manton no come back yet."
+
+Nora not only heard the voices but she had seen the girls coming, and
+feeling that she, as a member of the family, should "do the honors," she
+summoned courage to greet the callers.
+
+"Cousin Teddie will not be back before lunch time," said Nora sweetly.
+"Won't you come in and wait?"
+
+"Oh, no, thank you," faltered Thistle, observing one truant curl that
+had escaped the confines of Nora's field hat. "We may come over later in
+the afternoon--after drill," finished the Scout.
+
+Pell was more composed. "Are you visiting Rocky Ledge?" she asked
+cordially.
+
+"Oh, yes. I expect to stay quite a while," replied Nora. She liked the
+roguish smile Pell bestowed upon her--it was, somehow, a little like
+Barbara.
+
+"Then perhaps you would like to visit camp," pressed Thistle. "We love
+callers, don't we, girls?"
+
+This provided an opportunity for general conversation, and presently, no
+one knew just how it happened, but the Scouts and Nora the rebel, were
+having a perfectly splendid time on the side porch, talking about the
+things girls love to discuss, but which always appear to the onlooker or
+listener as a series of giggles and gasps.
+
+Nora was so glad she wore the khaki suit. All her old love of finery
+was, for the time, lost in the joy of feeling "in place" instead of "out
+of place." And the girls at close range did look very well in their
+uniforms. Betta and Thistle especially were just like models--Nora
+remembered that wonderful Girl Scout poster, and her former dislike for
+the uniform now threatened to turn to keen admiration. Just so long as
+anything "made a picture" the artistic little soul was sure to be
+satisfied. Changing an opinion was as simple a task for Nora as changing
+a hair ribbon, but it had been rather unpleasant to have the Scouts
+always held up as paragons.
+
+Admitting she had not yet visited the Ledge, Nora was straightway
+invited to do so, as the four Scouts expected to meet the other troup
+members out gathering sweet fern there.
+
+"Vita," she called back to the maid in the kitchen, "you keep Cap home,
+I'll be back in a little while."
+
+"Oh, no," objected Vita. "Mr. Jerry, he say you don't go never without
+Cap----"
+
+"But I am with the girls now," declared Nora a little sharply. She was
+so afraid the others might guess that it was she who wore the velvets!
+Looking very closely at each, however, she had not recognized the one
+who accosted her on the fatal dress-parade day. Alma was not in the
+party this time, so of course, Nora was correct in her opinion.
+
+"Doesn't Mr. Manton like to have you go out alone?" asked Thistle,
+innocently.
+
+"Well, you see," stumbled Nora, "I am not very well acquainted yet."
+
+"Was there a little boy visiting the Mantons the other day?" ventured
+Betta. She was almost consumed with curiosity, and as they turned their
+backs on the cottage the chance for unravelling the prince mystery
+seemed lost to them.
+
+"A boy? No," replied Nora. "I am the only one who has been here." A
+flame of color swept her face and although she stooped to pick up an
+acorn at the moment, at least two of the Scouts noticed the flush.
+
+"Light curls," whispered Wyn. "She has very pretty ringlets----"
+
+"Lots of girls have, of course," scoffed Betta. "You surely don't think
+she's twins?"
+
+"No," faltered the other, never dreaming how much closer than twins Nora
+was to the little prince.
+
+But Wyn was not easily satisfied. What was the sense of being appointed
+a committee to investigate and not do it? She picked a wonderful spray
+of pink clover before she asked Nora again:
+
+"Do you ever see a little boy, a very fancy dressed boy, around the
+cottage? One of our girls dreamed she saw one and we have been trying to
+persuade her she had a vision."
+
+A sigh of relief escaped Nora's lips. It should be easy to laugh the
+story over, since only one girl had seen her and that one had but a
+glimpse of her. She felt she would die of embarrassment now, if ever she
+were really found out. And only a few days ago it had seemed so trifling
+a thing! As she was about to reply to Wyn her hat fell off and down
+tumbled the curls.
+
+"What wonderful curls," exclaimed Wyn innocently. "Why do you hide them
+under a hat?"
+
+"Oh, I don't," replied Nora bravely, shaking out the golden cloud that
+tossed about her ears. "But when we go into brambles it is more
+comfortable to have one's head tidy," she finished.
+
+"Say, Wyn," charged Thistle, "do you suppose Nora has no other interest
+than in your visionary prince and yellow curls? Please allow her to
+listen to some of my woodland lore."
+
+"Oh, yes," mocked Betta. "Tell her all about your little fish in the
+brook that wouldn't go near Treble's hook."
+
+A scamper brookward responded to this sally.
+
+"Oh, there's Jimmie," cried Thistle. "Hey Jimsby!" she hailed to a small
+boy in a big boat. "Wait for us. We are going up to the Ledge. Give us a
+row?"
+
+Everyone, including Nora, ran towards the edge of the stream that
+rippled through willows. Jimmie with his boat was rare good fortune to
+come upon, and the Scouts were instantly eager to procure seats in the
+big, old skiff.
+
+Nora's timidity forced her to hold back, but she was too self-conscious
+to admit it.
+
+"Come on, little Nora," called out Thistle good naturedly. "I have a
+place for you right alongside of me."
+
+"Oh yes. Thistles never sink, you know," added Wyn.
+
+Nora's heart heat fast. Could she say she would so much rather walk to
+the Ledge?
+
+"Hurry up, Sister," sang out Betta. "Thistle wants to get out of rowing
+and you are her excuse."
+
+Taking her fright literally in her hand and casting it into the brook,
+Nora stepped into Jimmie's boat, smiling as if she were expecting the
+best good time of her life. A thought of her nervous mother barely had
+time to shape itself before all were seated, and the freckled faced
+Jimmie handed over the oars, without so much as uttering either a
+protest or agreeing to the piracy.
+
+"Don't you love a little lake like this?" asked Betta, noticing how
+silent was her companion.
+
+"I have never been on the water," said Nora truthfully. "At our school
+we are not allowed to take part in any dangerous sports."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Thistle. "How you must miss good times."
+
+"But we have many lovely parties and dances and all that sort of thing,"
+explained Nora. Her voice was entirely friendly and the difference of
+opinions by no means clashed.
+
+It was delightful. The girls sang, whistled, shouted and coo-heed, as
+occasion demanded, the occasion being that of answering bird calls from
+shore. Imitating birds was counted as the latest outdoor sport, and the
+Chickadees vied with one another in the accomplishment.
+
+"She's leakin'," said Jimmie without warning or apology.
+
+"I should say she is!" cried Wyn, jerking her feet up from the bottom of
+the boat. "Jimmie Jimbsy! Why didn't you say so?"
+
+"Oh, you didn't give me a chance," replied the lad frankly.
+
+"Oh, is it dangerous?" gasped Nora. Her cheeks went pale instantly.
+
+"No, just gives us a chance to show who is the best swimmer. You can
+swim, of course?" asked Wyn.
+
+"No, not a stroke," replied the frightened Nora.
+
+"Don't you mind Wynnie, Nora," spoke up Betta. "There's no possibility
+of any one having to swim. This boat would sail the rapids, wouldn't
+she, Jimmie?"
+
+"Here's another hat," offered Thistle. "Say, Jim! At least you ought to
+bring a tin can," she said in her jolliest tone.
+
+They were actually bailing out. The water managed to make cold little
+puddles in the bottom of the boat, and with the "large party aboard" as
+Pell charged Wyn because she happened to weigh a few more pounds than
+the others, the inflow threatened to bear the little craft down to the
+water's edge, uncomfortably close.
+
+But the girls were making a lark of it. Every time a hat emptied a shout
+went up, and every time a hat leaked a groan moaned out.
+
+"All in a life time," boomed Thistle. "But don't any one dare tell that
+story about the philosopher and the boatman."
+
+"Never heard it," responded Betta, lifting a particularly well filled
+hat to the boat's edge.
+
+Jimmie was now rowing. "Assisting him in that capacity," as Pell
+expressed it, was Wyn.
+
+"We gotta reach the Ledge," joked Thistle, "and I for one hate walking
+on the water."
+
+"We betta----"
+
+"Betta-be-good," went up the shout as Betta attempted to preach. She
+never got farther than that first mispronounced two syllables nowadays.
+
+Nora was now regarding the situation with more calmness. After the first
+fright it did not seem so dangerous, and the skill with which the jolly
+Scouts handled the task of bailing, was fascinating.
+
+But suddenly something happened; no one shouted, no one even spoke, but
+in a twinkling the entire boatload of girls were scrambling in the
+water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A NOVEL INITIATION
+
+
+"Quick girls! Get Nora!"
+
+This was the order given by Pell, who in emergencies assumed leadership.
+
+"Here Nora," called Betta, "just put your hand on my shoulder. We can
+almost walk in. Don't be frightened."
+
+But Nora was terribly frightened. That water! And not being able to swim
+a stroke!
+
+"Look!" called out Thistle, who was now standing in the more shallow
+water, "it is only up to my shoulders. Just bring Nora out here and she
+can wade in," announced the Scotch girl.
+
+The sight of Thistle actually standing on her feet brought to Nora the
+first free breath she had breathed since that awful thing happened. Now
+she had courage to stop choking and do as she had been told.
+
+"Why, you swam that time," puffed Betta to whom Nora had struggled. Did
+she really swim? She felt herself buoyed up for a moment somehow, in
+fact she had never gone down.
+
+Before that supporting move had lost its endurance her hand was safely
+on Betta's shoulder, and both were moving slowly but securely towards
+the bank.
+
+"That's it," Pell encouraged. "No need for any trouble if you just
+keep--cool!"
+
+"Cool enough," grumbled Thistle. "I hate lakes for that," she continued
+to call out.
+
+"How's that!" asked Betta when she reached the shallow water from which
+point all were wading in.
+
+"Wonderful!" exclaimed Nora. Her relief was so great it seemed to her
+pure joy.
+
+"Your first?" asked Wyn.
+
+"First?" repeated Nora.
+
+"First ducking," added Wyn. "If so it is your official initiation. You
+are now a full fledged member of the Chickadees."
+
+It was easy for Nora to laugh--she felt she would never do anything but
+laugh, it was so good to be safe within reach of shore once again.
+
+Thistle and Wyn threw their wet heads back and emitted a "coo-hee." The
+call was taken up by the others, and instead of the incident being of an
+alarming nature it was thus turned into a lark.
+
+"Coo-hee! Coo-hee!" sounded along the little lake basin, while shouts of
+laughter and expressions of opinion about bobbed heads after an
+unexpected ducking, were snapped from Scout to Scout as the party waded
+in.
+
+So near the edge they were loath to emerge. No possibility of getting
+any wetter or spoiling anything more generally, but there was a
+possibility of more fun.
+
+"Where's that Jimbsy boy?" demanded Pell. "We didn't leave him to the
+sharks, did we?"
+
+"Look," replied Thistle, pointing to a little slash in the lake's
+outline. It was a pocket full of water just about big enough to float
+the upturned boat that Jimmie was pushing in through it.
+
+"Poor boy! And we never asked him what he was out after," reflected
+Betta. "Maybe he had an order to bring a boat load of passengers from
+the Ledge."
+
+"We'll take up a collection for him," proposed Pell.
+
+"What'll we collect?" asked Wyn.
+
+"Opinions," replied the first. "They're most plentiful."
+
+Nora was out of water and shaking herself like a poodle. Now that it was
+all over, the thrill was unmistakable.
+
+"Look who's coming!" called out one of the girls, and turning around
+Nora glimpsed Ted coming down the narrow path.
+
+"Quick, Nora, hide!" exclaimed Wyn. "Then spring out and surprise her."
+
+Obeying, Nora jumped behind a big bush.
+
+Even in the excitement she realized what companionship meant. It was so
+much more fun than playing at foolish dressing up and imagination games.
+Could she have but understood more clearly she would have recognized in
+that situation the theory of having girls "do" to learn, and that active
+sport of the young is one of the standards of Scout teaching.
+
+She listened as the girls greeted Mrs. Manton. No gasps of alarm nor
+expressions of fear were exchanged, for Cousin Ted was of the Scout
+calibre herself.
+
+"Better hang on the hickory limbs and dry, before your leader sees you,"
+she cautioned. "Those uniforms won't be fit for parade."
+
+"And mine was all beautifully pressed," whimpered Pell.
+
+"So were all our suits, Mrs. Manton," asserted Thistle, "because we were
+calling on you first."
+
+"Really! Did you see my little girl?"
+
+"Oh, yes," drawled Betta.
+
+"I so want her to grow into scouting," continued Mrs. Manton, and at
+that Nora felt she could make her presence known. But a quick snap of a
+stick from Betta, as she swished it back of Nora's bush, kept her from
+stepping out.
+
+"Does she like the water?" asked Wyn, with a suppressed giggle.
+
+"I am afraid she has had little chance to get acquainted with it,"
+replied Ted. "Nora has been developed at one angle. This sort of
+experience would probably give her nervous prostration."
+
+That was the cue. Nora jumped out!
+
+"Child!"
+
+"The very same!" pronounced Thistle grandly, waving a dripping arm.
+
+Mrs. Manton was too surprised to do more than look at Nora. Her brown
+eyes were twinkling and her mouth twitching in a broad grin. Presently
+she jumped past Betta and threw her arms around Nora.
+
+"You darling baby!" she exclaimed, all unmindful of the water she was
+blotting up from Nora's new suit. "How ever did you--come here and
+get--like--this?"
+
+"Chick-chick-chick-Chickadees!" sang out a chorus. "Cluck! Cluck!
+Cluck!"
+
+If one could look pretty after a ducking in a strange lake, Nora did.
+Her curls liked nothing better, and her cheeks pinked up prettily, while
+her eyes--they were as blue as the violets that listened in the
+underbrush.
+
+"You don't mind her initiation, do you, Mrs. Manton?" asked Wyn.
+
+"Why no. In fact, I'm delighted," replied the young woman. "But why the
+secret? I have been left out in the cold," she said, genially.
+
+"Only candidates are informed," said Wyn, keeping up the joke.
+
+"Was that really it? Was this a private initiation, and am I intruding?"
+
+"All over," sang out Betta. "The bars are down and the guests welcome."
+
+"Betta be goin' up the hill a bit," suggested Thistle. "This is no place
+for dripping chicks."
+
+"The sun _would_ be helpful," agreed Pell. "I don't mind the water when
+it's fresh, but I hate to get mildewed."
+
+"Hey!" came a call from somewhere. "Wanta get in again?"
+
+"We certainly do not," yelled back Wyn. "Jimbsy James, you're a fraud.
+What ails your yacht, anyway?"
+
+"All right, then," called back Jimmie good naturedly. "I'll be goin'. So
+long!"
+
+"So long yourself," called back Wyn, "and send your bill to
+headquarters."
+
+"Were you--in his boat?" asked Ted, a light beginning to break through
+the girls' perpetual nonsense.
+
+"We were, momentarily," replied Betta. "But we needed exercise so we
+decided to walk," she finished. Nora saw how friendly the girls all were
+with Ted, and felt a pang, not of jealousy, but of regret. Why had she
+never known such companionship?
+
+"I must go back to my trees," said Mrs. Manton, when the girls had found
+a clear path of sunshine. "I have some important marking to do. Nora,
+you follow directions and you need not fear earth, sky or water. These
+little Scouts are impervious to all catastrophes."
+
+And Nora had almost expected to be sent home for a rub down, a hot drink
+and all the other coddling!
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," she hurried to reply. "I'll be home----"
+
+"When the ceremonies are over," interrupted Thistle. "We are due at the
+Ledge long ago, and if we don't soon make it I am afraid we will all be
+kept in tonight."
+
+"In those wet things?" protested Wyn. "Not for me. I'm going back to
+camp and change. Come along Nora. We have an extra outfit in our box and
+we'll lend it to you. Thistle is a regular fish, she is never happy when
+dry skinned."
+
+Mrs. Manton had disappeared in the winding path and Nora was secretly
+glad of Wyn's invitation. She could not as yet actually enjoy wet
+clothes. The girls had managed to save their hats and caps, but even
+these still dripped and could not be comfortably worn to keep off the
+strong sun's rays that beat down in the clear spots along the lake's
+edge.
+
+"We'll have some trouble explaining to the general," remarked Thistle as
+they started back to camp. "And this was the day we were to finish our
+collection."
+
+"But look, what we did collect," answered Wyn under her breath,
+referring to Nora. "Did you ever see anyone so pleased as our friend?"
+
+"She looked happy," assented Thistle. "But say, Scoutie; whatever are we
+going to tell the girls about the prince?"
+
+"Let's say we drowned him," suggested Wyn, foolishly. "That will give
+Alma a lovely murder mystery to work upon."
+
+Nora overheard the word "prince" and surmised correctly it was meant for
+her Fauntleroy. She longed to turn back to the Nest rather than meet the
+other girl who might recognize her.
+
+"It's so near lunch time----" she began.
+
+"Oh, no girlie," protested Betta. "You are the only specimen we have
+collected today, and if you don't come back with us we will all get
+dreadful marks. Come along. Be a sport and help us out."
+
+"Yes, we will be considered life savers, perhaps," added Thistle. "Of
+course, we won't say we did anything noble----"
+
+"Nor say we didn't," drawled Wyn.
+
+Thus urged, Nora had no choice, so she set off with her new companions
+towards Chickadee Camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TOO MUCH TEASING
+
+
+Swept off her foolish feet of fancy and landed safely on the more
+practical ground of girls' life, Nora presently found herself in the
+canvas tent, actually donning a Scout uniform.
+
+No ivory dressing comb nor shell-back mirror, instead a wooden box for a
+dressing table, and a bowl of cool, clear water fresh from the
+velvet-rimmed pool, and a glass--the piece that fell from a wagon and
+was splintered up so no one would touch its "bad luck," so Pell rescued
+it and painted a four-leaf clover on its jagged edge! That was a Scout
+mirror.
+
+It was a revelation to the pampered child. And like so many others who
+are blamed for their circumstances, Nora was fascinated with the glimpse
+given of a real world. Here girls lived as human beings privileged to
+invent their own tools which would be used in modelling the skilled game
+of a happy life.
+
+"Of course," explained Pell, "we go through quite some formality before
+we really become Scouts, but necessity knows no law, and this is
+necessity."
+
+"It's just wonderful," admitted the stranger, all the while fighting
+down a sense of guilt that she should ever have disliked the Scouts and
+their standards.
+
+"Now we want you to meet Alma," announced Wyn. "She's one of our little
+Tenderfoots, and so romantic? She will be sure to want to adopt you, for
+just wait until you see if Betta doesn't say we found you in the lake!"
+she predicted.
+
+Alma came from the leader's tent. She had been studying--those tests
+were soon to be held.
+
+"Just see our little pond-lily," began Thistle, while Nora, now somewhat
+accustomed to the girls' jokes, managed not to blush too furiously.
+
+"Oh!" began Alma, then she stopped.
+
+Nora felt in that moment she was discovered and that the prince would
+soon cease to be a mystery.
+
+"Well, Alma, this is Nora--Nora----"
+
+"Blair," added Nora, realizing her full name had not been given the
+girls before.
+
+"Oh, how do you do?" faltered Alma. "I thought at first I had met you
+before."
+
+"No. Nora is the visitor at the Mantons," explained Wyn, "and we all had
+a ducking--we initiated Nora and had a lovely time. You missed it, Al."
+
+"Sorry," said Alma, still eyeing Nora.
+
+"But we spoiled our uniforms," rattled on Wyn. "That wretch, Jimmie
+Freckles, dumped us right out into the lake."
+
+"And I was brought back to your camp to be redressed," Nora managed to
+say. She felt if she did not say something the girl with the lovely,
+glossy, brown hair, who was staring at her, would penetrate her secret.
+
+"Alma has visions," went on Wyn. "She saw a real prince in your woods
+one day; didn't you, Alma?"
+
+"I saw a little boy in a velvet suit----"
+
+"And he had curls."
+
+"And he had dimples."
+
+"And he had lovely gold buckles on his slippers."
+
+"And he had----"
+
+But Alma turned on her heel and left the girls to finish their
+description without her aid.
+
+Nora was greatly relieved when she left.
+
+"Honestly," explained Thistle, "Alma insists she did see a little boy in
+your woods. Did you ever come across such a child?"
+
+"Never," replied Nora, then, "I really must hurry home, I am afraid I am
+late for lunch now."
+
+"Won't you stay? We are to have----"
+
+"Thank you, Pell, but Cousin Ted and Cousin Jerry will be so anxious to
+hear all the news----"
+
+"But you must keep secrets--make secrets if you haven't any to keep,"
+advised Betta, who had taken a fancy to Nora. In fact all the girls
+showed unusual interest in the little visitor.
+
+"Oh, I know how to do that," Nora replied truthfully.
+
+Then, with many invitations and a number of suggestions as to spending
+some days and even a few evenings, Nora finally managed to race off
+toward the Nest, after Betta walked with her out of the camp grounds and
+watched while she hurried down the road. It was a very short distance to
+Wildwoods, and before Betta turned back to Camp Chickadee she had seen
+faithful Cap run out to meet Nora.
+
+"Now, are you satisfied, Alma?" asked Wyn. "You would insist the visitor
+was a boy."
+
+"It may be her brother," replied the brown-haired one, "but honestly,
+girls, and no joking, he had curls just like hers," said Alma.
+
+"But isn't she sweet?" asked Wyn.
+
+"Princes aside, I like her most as well as Alma's vision," declared
+Thistle. "And did you notice how matter-of-fact she donned Bluebird's
+outfit? What are we going to say to her if she happens back tonight?"
+
+"Gone to the tailor's to be pressed," suggested Pell, glibly. "There
+come the others. Now for a lecture."
+
+But instead, Miss Beckwith, the leader, came up smiling. "We heard all
+about it, girls," she began. "Met that precious James Jimmie Jimsby of
+yours, and he said it was in no way your fault."
+
+"Bless the boy!" murmured Pell. "We shall certainly have to adopt the
+list of Jays. First we capsize his boat and then he pleads for us. Now
+isn't that gallant?"
+
+"But Becky," began Thistle, sidling up to the popular leader, "we have
+had such a wonderful experience. We have converted a real rebel."
+
+"Rebel!" exclaimed Wyn. "How do you know Nora was anything like that?"
+
+"Well, Mrs. Ted Manton said as much, didn't she?"
+
+"She didn't," replied Pell crisply. "She merely said that Nora had very
+little experience in girls' sports."
+
+"I know," interrupted the leader. "Mrs. Manton has mentioned her to me,
+and I am very glad you have succeeded in interesting her. I fancy she is
+a very capable child, with too much time on her hands."
+
+"Oh," sighed Betta. "If we had only known it we could have borrowed
+some. What ever shall we do to get in a day's work now?"
+
+"Lunch first and then do double quick duty," suggested the young leader.
+"It has been rather a lost day, counting by the usual results, but then,
+we have to figure in the new friend."
+
+"You're a love, Becky," declared Treble. "I am sure you are going to
+help me with my basket. It has to be done tomorrow, if I am to get full
+credit for it."
+
+"Where's Alma?" asked Miss Beckwith, suddenly.
+
+"Pouting," replied Wyn. "You are not to know it, of course, but Alma's
+in love!"
+
+A shout corroborated the statement. "She may be hanging up wet clothes,"
+suggested Pell. "When they're in love they do foolish things like that,
+I've heard tell."
+
+"Girls! Didn't you hang up your wet things yet?" Miss Beckwith asked in
+real surprise.
+
+A rush to the back of the tent, where the garments had been hastily
+heaped, gave response. Presently there was a contest being held to see
+who could hang up the most material in the smallest space and with the
+fewest clothes pins; at least that appeared to be the attempt the happy
+four were making; but when the lunch bell sounded, each and all were
+ready for the fresh corn, new potatoes, string beans and macaroni--a
+menu especially designed for culprits who fall in lakes and forget to
+hang up their uniforms to dry.
+
+Everyone talked of the little stranger, and also everyone praised her
+beauty. She was so cute, so sweet, so adorable, and Pell even went so
+far as to whisper to Thistle that she was "peachy," although all slang
+was taboo at the table.
+
+"And Alma," confided Wyn, "we were so sorry not to be able to locate
+your prince----"
+
+"Girls," Alma exclaimed. "If you say prince to me again I'll scream."
+
+"You did this time," said Betta, "and we don't mind it at all. You
+scream really prettily."
+
+"Hush," spoke Doro. She was down at the far end of the table and had not
+been with the girls on their eventful trip. "I think we have teased
+enough, really. Let the poor little prince rest."
+
+"Good idea," chimed another who also had missed the expedition. "We have
+a new plan to propose, and with all that prince stuff we can't get your
+attention. Becky is going to take us to the Glen tomorrow morning, and
+we want volunteers to make up the lunch baskets."
+
+"Call that a new plan?" mocked Wyn. "Why, that's as old as the Scouts.
+First thing I ever did was to volunteer to make up a basket for my big
+sister, and she picked it up and walked off with it."
+
+"Didn't even thank you?" asked Miss Beckwith, who always took part in
+the girls' fun.
+
+"Well, she may have," replied Wyn, "but that didn't impress me. It was
+those sandwiches and those cakes----"
+
+"You didn't make those, Wynnie?" demanded Treble. "If you did we won't
+ask for volunteers. We'll wish the job on you."
+
+Alma was quiet during all the merry chatting, but Thistle, who could not
+resist one more thrust, said next:
+
+"Thinking of him, dearie?" she asked. "And his little velvet coat----"
+
+But the joke had a most astonishing effect. Alma sniffed, breathed in
+quick little gasps, and the next moment asked to be excused from the
+table.
+
+"She's crying!" declared Betta.
+
+"Horrid girls!" murmured Doro. "I told you she had had enough of
+princes."
+
+"But to cry! Alma isn't like that," said Wyn in real surprise.
+
+Miss Beckwith, who had reached the end of her lunch and was waiting for
+the others to finish, slipped away after Alma.
+
+This left the girls to wonder, and they did that in all the ways known
+to girlhood.
+
+Then it was definitely decided the first girl who mentioned the word
+prince should be made to pay a heavy fine.
+
+All felt truly sorry for little Alma, but it was the wise and
+understanding Janet Beckwith who gathered the sobbing girl into her arms
+and soothed the sighs, tears, and protestations.
+
+"Just teasing, dear," she insisted. "You must not mind their nonsense.
+They, every one, love you dearly."
+
+"But I did see a real prince, Becky. And--and they won't believe me,"
+sobbed out Alma.
+
+Miss Beckwith wondered. "A real prince?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes. I was near enough to see all his pretty--things," Alma paused in
+her sobbing to relate. "He had all velvet clothes, and such a pretty
+black cap. Oh Becky!" she sobbed afresh, "can you ever imagine what it
+is to have the--girls--all making fun of you?"
+
+"Now, Alma dear," again soothed the leader, "I am really surprised that
+you should take this so seriously. You know the girls are not making fun
+of you----"
+
+"They--said I had--a vision," she sobbed as heavily as ever. "And I am
+determined to find out who that was--and prove it to them."
+
+Miss Beckwith was sorely puzzled. Naturally she supposed the girl was
+romancing. But why should she take it so seriously?
+
+"Come, now, dear," she urged. "We have talked it all out and the only
+thing that worries you is that the girls do not believe you, isn't it?
+
+"Yes, that's the worst of it."
+
+"Then, let's sleep over it and see what the morrow will bring in the
+way--of light." Becky scarcely knew just what to propose so she threw
+the responsibility on the "morrow."
+
+Alma was over her "spell" presently. But the prince had, by no means,
+lost his real personal identity to the sensitive little Scout.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A DIVERSION NOBLY EARNED
+
+
+Ted's pleasure, shown when Nora's transformation was revealed to her in
+a dripping little "pond lily" on the edge of Mirror Lake, was not to be
+compared with Jerry's joys when he first beheld his Bobbs in the Girl
+Scout uniform. They were waiting for Nora when she returned at lunch
+time.
+
+"Pretty kipper, nifty, all right and no kiddin'." These were some of the
+exclamations he gave vent to.
+
+"But I thought you didn't like little girls in anything but skirts," Ted
+reminded him.
+
+"I didn't but I do," he replied Jerry-like. "Now what do you say Bobbie,
+to a try at horse back ridin'?" He always dropped his g's when perfectly
+happy.
+
+"I'd like to try it," admitted Nora proudly. She might not have realized
+it but the trim little service costume had already emancipated her. She
+was no longer the creature of catalogued toilet accessories, "send no
+money" and "we guarantee money's worth or money back," etc. The new Nora
+was like a butterfly leaving its cocoon--although the drying process had
+been facilitated by the loan of a new blouse and bloomers from the
+Chickadees' wardrobe.
+
+Vita came out to announce lunch and she stood dumbfounded. Vita was not
+Americanized to the point of diplomacy.
+
+"You lose your good clothes? Those t'ings not yours?" she asked blandly.
+
+"I have one like this," replied Nora. She did know how to respond to
+interference, and had not yet quite forgiven Vita for the attic episode.
+
+"Don't you like it, Vita?" asked Jerry, his brown eyes twinkling. "We
+were thinking of getting you one like it--for your tramps through the
+woods, you know."
+
+The Italian woman scowled. She lacked a sense of humor as well as some
+other details of Americanization.
+
+"Don't tease her, Jerry," Ted ordered. "He is only fooling, Vita," she
+assured the perplexed maid, while visions of the fat woman in a jaunty
+little Scout uniform filtered through the brains of both Ted and Nora.
+
+During lunch time conversation ran to the important occurrence of the
+morning, but Ted did not know all about the ducking in the Lake, and
+since Betta had cautioned Nora to keep secrets and if necessary to make
+them, it seemed unwise to tell every single detail: thus Nora reasoned.
+So it happened neither Ted nor Jerry knew whether the first swim was
+intentional or accidental, and both respected the "secrets of the
+order," as Jerry put it.
+
+"The girls are coming over this afternoon with a manual," the candidate
+said as tea was finished, "and then I'll have to do some studying."
+
+"I see where Cap and I will have to paddle our own canoe hereafter,"
+lamented Jerry. "That's just the way with you girls. I get you all broke
+in and you race off and join up with the Indians. Well," he sighed
+deeply, "I suppose Ted and I and Cap will have to go on our picnics
+alone, in spite of all our plans."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Jerry! Did you have a picnic planned!" eagerly asked Nora,
+leaving her place at the table to join Jerry on the big couch.
+
+"I did but I haven't," he replied, with pretended disappointment. "What
+good are picnics for Girl Scouts? They want big game with real guns and
+elephant meat for supper," he finished pompously.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Jerry!" pouted Nora. "If you really had a picnic planned
+couldn't we have it, and couldn't I invite my Scout friends?"
+
+"'Course you could, Kitten," Jerry gave in. "I'll fix up the finest
+little picnic those Scouts ever heard tell of. Just you wait and see."
+
+"But we are going to celebrate privately this evening, Nora," Ted added.
+"How would you like to go to a picture play?"
+
+"Oh, I'd love it, of course. I do so love motion pictures, and the
+Misses Baily are so fussy about letting any of us go."
+
+"I'll bet," agreed Jerry. "Want you to see Mother Goose and Little Jack
+Horner----"
+
+"Both of which are each," interrupted Ted. "Guess you had better read up
+your nursery rhymes, Jerry."
+
+"Well, I didn't take your college course, Theodora, but I went to Sunday
+School a lot--had to," he admitted, shamelessly.
+
+"Then, it's all settled for this evening," continued Ted, quite as if
+there had been no break in the conversation. "We will ride into Lenox
+and see the 'movies.' I know it's a good picture this week and it isn't
+Mother Goose either."
+
+"Glad of that. I hate the old lady myself," scoffed Jerry. "This
+afternoon I must go out to moorlands, Ted," he said next, seriously.
+"Suppose you and Nora take the day off and loaf? You did a lot of hard
+work this morning----"
+
+"But I want to finish pegging off the west end," Ted interrupted.
+
+"Oh, could I help you, Cousin Ted?" begged Nora. "I would just love to
+do some real surveying."
+
+"And I would love to have you, certainly. We will rest for one full
+hour, then I'll let you carry the chains and drops, and off we go to the
+West End. How's that?"
+
+"Lovely. Will Cap come?"
+
+"Sartin sure," declared Jerry. "I never let the youngsters go out on
+location without the big dog, do I Cap?"
+
+Cap brushed his plumy tail against Jerry's elbow and made eyes at his
+master, agreeing with everything he said, as usual.
+
+Later, when the hour's rest had been taken, Nora and Cousin Ted made
+their way to the grounds that were to be surveyed. Nora carried the
+"chain" which she wanted to call a tape line until Ted explained that
+carpenters had tape lines and surveyors used "chains," and the term
+really meant an exact land measurement. The heavy instruments were
+already in position, and when the work of measuring the land with her
+eye, as Nora declared the process to be, was actually begun, the
+apprentice was quite fascinated.
+
+"Now, show me the cobweb," she insisted as Ted adjusted the delicate eye
+piece.
+
+"There. Do you see that mark outside the little drop of alcohol?" asked
+Ted.
+
+"The very small line like that on Miss Baily's thermometer?"
+
+"Yes, the line that frames the drop," explained Ted, "that's the finest
+substance we can get, and it's cobweb."
+
+Nora peered through the telescope. She was seeing a drop of alcohol
+shift from level to level as Ted moved the transit, but she was thinking
+of the night she discovered the cobwebs in the attic. Somehow attic
+fancies clung to her, tenaciously, and had she been at all superstitious
+she surely would have called the attic unlucky. Just see the trouble
+that Fauntleroy acting got her into.
+
+"It wouldn't take many webs to make such tiny marks," she said finally,
+as Ted moved off to "spot a tree." "I guess I won't have to gather many
+for Cousin Jerry for that little marking."
+
+Ted had moved off and with her small hatchet was hacking a piece out of
+the bark of a tree--spotting it, as she termed it. Then she returned to
+the telescope and sought the level.
+
+"What's the little weight on the string?" Nora next asked.
+
+"Oh, that's our plumb-bob," replied the surveyor. "Bob shows us just
+when a line is straight. Now watch."
+
+Over a peg in the ground Ted swung the heavy little pendulum, first to
+right then to the left, and so on until it fell directly on the mark.
+
+"Now see, that is plumb," said Ted.
+
+Nora gazed intently at the drop. "Everything has to be just exactly,
+hasn't it?" she queried, wondering why. "First, you strain your alcohol
+with cobwebs, then you drop your bob on the little peg straight as the
+string----"
+
+"That is just where we get the expression from," her companion assured
+her. "Nothing can be straighter."
+
+"And how do you get the mark on the tree?"
+
+"Look through the glass again."
+
+So the first lesson in surveying went on. It was fascinating to Nora,
+and when Ted decided enough land had been "chained off" Nora wanted to
+mark a few trees for her own use.
+
+"Couldn't I chop a nick in this one? It is so beautiful, and when we
+come another day I can add another nick--just like a calendar."
+
+Mrs. Manton readily agreed, so long as Nora did not use a mark that
+might confuse the surveyors; and so interesting was the work, time flew
+and the afternoon was soon waning.
+
+While in the woods more than once Nora had reason to be thankful for her
+practical Scout uniform, for she climbed trees, sought wild grapes from
+high limbs, gathered wild columbine and enjoyed the wildwoods as only a
+novice can. Birds scarcely flew from the path, and she marvelled they
+were so tame, but Ted explained they had no cause for fear, as the woods
+were their own and danger would be a new experience to them.
+
+When finally Cap came back from his rambles and it was decided that no
+more surveying nor "play-veying" should be indulged in, instruments were
+gathered again, and reluctantly Nora followed Mrs. Manton out into the
+path, newly beaten down by those who had been following spots, bobs,
+cobwebs, chains, telescopes, compasses, transits and all the other
+skilled implements used.
+
+"Are you really a surveyor?" she asked Ted, just wondering what she
+would call herself in Barbara's letter.
+
+"Yes, that or a civil engineer," replied Ted. "That is really what I
+studied in the famous college course Jerry is always teasing about."
+
+"It is sort of artist work, isn't it?"
+
+"A wonderful sort. Just see what good times I have out among birds,
+flowers, wildwoods, and the whole clean, untamed world," said Theodora
+Manton. "Some women may like indoors, but give me the woods and the
+fields and all of this," she finished, sweeping her free brown hand
+before her with a gesture that encompassed glorious creation.
+
+Nora pondered. How many worlds were there after all? How different this
+was from that which she knew at school? Would she ever enjoy the other
+now, after all this? She glanced at her scratched hands and smiled. What
+manicuring would erase those, and yet how precious they would seem when
+Cousin Jerry would hear what she had done to help with his wonderful
+surveying?
+
+"And we must fix up and look pretty for tonight," said her companion, as
+if reading Nora's thoughts. "I so seldom want to go out evenings I
+really have to think what to wear."
+
+"Do we dress up?" queried Nora.
+
+"A little, that is we don't wear these," indicating the khaki. "But all
+the Lenox folks are professionals in one line or the other, and you know
+dear, they always claim a social code of their own."
+
+Nora was not positive she entirely understood, but she guessed that
+professionals, if they were anything like her Cousin Ted, would wear
+just such clothes as they liked best and felt most comfortable in, and
+she wondered how such would look in a theatre.
+
+"Another rest, then an early dinner and we'll be off," announced Mrs.
+Manton when they reached the Nest. "Nora darling, you have made me very
+happy today," the brown eyes embraced Nora while the hands were still
+burdened with instruments. "I will write at once to your mother and ask
+her----"
+
+But a shout of Jerry's interrupted the most interesting clause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CRAWLING IN THE SHADOWS
+
+
+"You jump in the car and wait a few minutes," said Ted to Nora.
+
+It was almost dusk and the moving picture party was about to set out for
+Lenox in the trim little car which, Ted insisted, was tamed, educated
+and "fed from her hand" when it went out of gas.
+
+Nora willingly complied with the order to take her seat and wait. Dark
+shadows fell from the trees to the narrow roadway, and while alone there
+Nora was just wondering if everything was going to happen in one single
+day.
+
+Cousins Jerry and Ted had many things to look after before setting out,
+for while Vita was a capable houseworker, she knew nothing of home
+management. Some minutes passed and the others had not yet come to the
+car where Nora sat so quietly that the squirrels had no idea a single
+human being was in the black car. One gay little furred skipper had the
+audacity to hop on the running board, but Nora from the depths of her
+cushions, never stirred.
+
+A rustling of the leaves, much heavier than the tread of squirrels could
+possibly have been, gave her a start. She just peeked out in time to see
+something crawl across the road and continue on toward the path to the
+cottage.
+
+"Oh, what was that!" Nora barely whispered. Then she raised her head and
+gazed intently at the crawling thing, that now was not more than an
+outline in the coming darkness.
+
+For the moment she was too surprised to jump out and follow. Could it be
+a bear or some big animal? Certainly it was no small woodland creature,
+and as it passed the car she could hear queer, jerky breathing.
+
+Being so near the house there was no need for alarm as to her personal
+safety, so she did jump out now and ran to meet Ted and Jerry who were
+just turning in from the barn drive.
+
+"Oh," Nora exclaimed breathlessly. "Did you see--anything?"
+
+"Anything?" repeated Jerry.
+
+"I mean did you see--anything queer?"
+
+"Why no," replied Ted. "But Nora, you look as if you had."
+
+"I did, really. Something stole out of the bushes and crept across the
+path, toward the kitchen." Nora was still short of breath from her
+fright.
+
+"Now Bobbs! You don't mean to say that some wild, roaring lion----"
+
+But Nora interrupted Jerry. "Honestly Cousin Jerry," she declared, "I
+did see something, and we can't go out and leave Vita alone until we
+find out what it was."
+
+"Bravo! Spoken like a Scout!" sang out the irrepressible Jerry. "Now
+let's all have a look."
+
+"Over there," directed Nora, and while neither Mr. nor Mrs. Manton
+appeared to take the matter seriously, they did, never-the-less, follow
+Nora's directions and quietly prowl along the path.
+
+"There," exclaimed Nora. "I saw it again!"
+
+"I thought I saw something scamper off myself," admitted Ted. "What do
+you suppose it can be?" She stepped out squarely in the driveway and
+stood watching.
+
+"Give me a look and I'll announce," said Jerry, his cap in one hand and
+a great stick, more like a tree limb he had hastily snatched up, in the
+other. He was going to have some fun out of it, at any rate. He never
+could miss a chance like this.
+
+Thrashing down the bushes from the drive to the garden path took but a
+few moments, then they were within sight of the door.
+
+"What's the matter?" called out Vita. "You find big snake?"
+
+"No, we're looking for it," answered Jerry. "Did he come your way?"
+
+"I no see, not any," said Vita fully. She never depended upon the scant
+Englishothers were apt to employ. While speaking she kept moving from
+one spot on the path to another, and her actions seemed so absurd Ted
+questioned the maid again.
+
+"Now Vita, you know perfectly well you have seen something," she
+insisted. "And we are not going away until we find out what is around
+here. Just look at Cap sniffing! He knows," continued Mrs. Manton,
+moving up nearer to Vita and closer to the house.
+
+"Nothing a-tall. Everything all right--good," persisted Vita backing to
+the doorway.
+
+"Say Vi," called Jerry in his cheeriest voice, "who's your friend? Are
+you trying to hide him behind your skirts? I told you, Ted, she should
+wear a uniform."
+
+"Oh, Jerry, do stop your nonsense," begged Ted. "We shall be late for
+the pictures. Just run in and look around the house. Of course
+everything is all right, but we don't want Nora worrying while we're
+away and Vita's alone."
+
+Nora had been looking sharply from one dark spot to another but no
+further disturbance appeared.
+
+"Nothing could get into the house with Vita right at the door," she
+reasoned aloud. "I suppose it was just something from the woods. Maybe
+one of those 'possums you told me about, Cousin Jerry."
+
+"Maybe, and again maybe not," he answered. "But just wait until I shake
+this stick over the premises. Vita will feel a lot safer when I wave the
+wand of warning over the place," and he entered the house with Vita so
+close to his heels that both Nora and Mrs. Manton looked surprised.
+
+
+"Queer, how she acts," admitted Mrs. Manton. "I just wonder---- But of
+course she is only hurrying to get us off. She knows we will miss the
+first show if we do not get away at once."
+
+Jerry was soon out, stick in hand, and a broad grin on his handsome
+face.
+
+"Nary a thing," he announced. "Nora, I am afraid your scouting has gone
+to your head. That, or you are seeing things."
+
+Before Nora might have replied Ted insisted they hurry off or give up
+the trip to Lenox, entirely.
+
+"I'm ready," Nora said, instead of commenting on the moving shadow. "I
+shouldn't like to miss that picture."
+
+"All aboard!" sang out Jerry, and when the little car shot out of the
+woods into the splendid turnpike--the pride of all motorists for many
+miles around--Vita might have entertained her mysterious visitor (if she
+really had one) to her heart's content, for all of the party bound
+cityward.
+
+Since her arrival at Woodlands Nora had little chance for auto rides,
+there were so many more interesting things to do, so that the short trip
+to Lenox now seemed something of a luxury.
+
+But the evening's entertainment was even more delightful. The attractive
+little theatre was so prettily made up with colored paper flowers over
+the lights, with breezy electric fans and such simple contrivances as,
+in the larger city, Nora had not seen, it all appeared new, novel and
+attractive. It was quaint and cosy, and such an effect was ever
+delightful to the fanciful daughter of a woman who called herself Nannie
+instead of mother.
+
+All about them people greeted the Mantons, and it was plain they were
+held in high esteem by many, farmers as well as more cultured folks,
+plain or dressed up--all had a pleasant word or a cordial greeting for
+the government surveyor and his attractive wife.
+
+Nora wondered if the Girl Scouts ever came in to see the pictures, but
+Ted expressed the opinion that when they did come they came in a crowd
+and made a regular party of the occasion.
+
+"But they have so many pleasures of their own for evenings," she told
+Nora, "I shouldn't fancy they would want to come under an ordinary roof
+often during the summer months."
+
+After the big picture with all its wizard scenes had been enjoyed, they
+started back towards Wildwoods. It was then that the fear of that
+crawling thing again crowded down on Nora and caused her to shiver until
+she actually shook.
+
+"Too cool?" inquired Ted, unfolding a soft knitted scarf from her end of
+the seat.
+
+"No, just shivery," truthfully answered the imaginative Nora.
+
+It was very dark along the country road, and only the flashing lights of
+passing cars penetrated the dense blackness of the tree-tunnels through
+which the party rode. It may have been this or it may have been the
+accumulated fatigue of her big, full day, but at any rate, Nora felt
+very much inclined to huddle up to Cousin Ted and hide.
+
+The humming of the motor was like a lullaby, and the voices of Ted and
+Jerry mingled so evenly that presently Nora forgot, then she forgot to
+think, and then she stopped thinking.
+
+She was sound asleep in the cosy comfort of Theodora Manton's encircling
+arm.
+
+"I'll lift her," she heard a voice whisper.
+
+It had seemed only a minute since she entered the car and here she was
+home, at the very door, with Vita standing there, lantern in hand.
+
+"Oh, thank you, Cousin Jerry," spoke up Nora bravely. "I am wide awake
+now. How perfectly silly to fall asleep?"
+
+"How perfectly sensible," he contradicted. "I wish you had not awakened.
+I should have had a great joke to tell your Girl Scouts," he teased.
+
+Nora laughed lightly. She was on the ground and anxious to get into the
+cottage. Why she felt so timid was not clear even to herself, but
+somewhere within her dread lurked, and when Ted proposed lemonade and
+crackers Nora excused herself on the grounds of being deliciously
+sleepy. For once she accepted Vita's offer to light her lights and make
+the window right for the night.
+
+"You go quick asleep?" Vita remarked, turning down the soft summer
+covering from the little bed.
+
+"Oh, yes. I fell asleep in the car," returned Nora, yawning.
+
+"That's good. Then you hear no storm----"
+
+"But there is no sign of a storm, Vita."
+
+"Oh, but maybe. Or maybe, yes, some big birds fly and make screech----"
+
+"Vita!" exclaimed Nora sharply. "What ever are you talking about? Are
+you trying to--scare me?"
+
+"Oh, no. No get scared at--any t'ing." mumbled Vita while her own
+excited manner seemed real cause for alarm. "I just like to know when my
+little girl sleep very good, like baby."
+
+Truth to tell Nora was too sleepy to argue, otherwise she might have
+demanded an explanation. Vita was plainly excited, and this fact coupled
+with that of her strange actions earlier in the evening was
+unquestionably enough to cause suspicion; but rest to a girl afflicted
+with "nerves" is a precious thing, and when it came to Nora she had no
+idea of risking its loss by any sort of argument.
+
+But Vita seemed to want to linger longer. First she looked at one
+window, then at another. She even plumped a cushion--as if that were
+necessary to a night's comfort!
+
+"Where do you sleep, Vita?" asked Nora, drowsily.
+
+"Oh, in a good bed, in the little room by kitchen," replied the maid.
+
+Nora recalled the maid's room. It was on the first floor just off the
+kitchen. So it could not have been Vita who slept in the attic.
+
+"Would Vita get you a nice cold glass of water?" asked the solicitous
+one, still anxious to please.
+
+"Oh, Vita," a yawn interrupted, "I am so sleepy----"
+
+"Then I go----"
+
+"Yes, you go. Good night, Vita," said Nora sweetly, "and I hope I sleep
+as soundly as I threaten to and as well as you want me to," finished
+Nora. "Isn't that being a very good girl?"
+
+"Very, very good," said Vita happily. Then she went out quietly and left
+Nora to her coveted slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
+
+
+But being converted to scouting could not at once cure Nora of her dream
+habits. Being so long alone in school, and having a brain insatiable for
+creative material, she usually went to bed to think and she went to
+sleep to dream.
+
+"I never felt so deliciously tired," she murmured. "But I do wonder what
+ailed Vita."
+
+Presently blue eyes cuddled in their white satin blankets with brown
+fringe borders (a way Nora had of describing eye lids and lashes), and
+then the panorama began.
+
+First it was the Scout memory. She, as the bravest Scout that had ever
+joined a troup, dramatically saved someone from drowning. Next, Nora as
+the actress in the picture shown at Lenox, performed the daring feat of
+swinging from the great rock with strikingly better effect than had she
+whose name graced the program. The third dream installment had to do
+with something very indistinct but horribly terrifying. It revealed a
+crawling thing that first crossed the path, then climbed the morning
+glory vine right up to Nora's window, and now--yes now--it was choking
+her!
+
+Had she screamed?
+
+She found herself sitting up straight in bed and she felt as if her very
+curls had straightened out in fright.
+
+There--was a noise! She listened, put her hand out and switched on the
+light. It was nothing in her room, but seemed somewhere--Yes, there it
+was again and it surely was up in the attic!
+
+Was that someone moaning?
+
+Dream dizzy still, Nora could form no definite resolve, either to call
+or to remain quiet. She simply lay fascinated with fright. The noise
+ceased. Still she lay--listening. Then other sounds penetrated the
+night. That was feet--shuffling of feet and they seemed just above her
+head! Quickly Nora reached out again and touched the button that
+switched off the light. She would rather lay hidden deeply in the bed
+clothing than be exposed to whatever was prowling in the attic, should
+it come down the stairs.
+
+Then she thought she heard whispering, but that might have been her
+excited imagination. She drew the covers closer and with her head buried
+from sound she could no longer listen, and not possibly hear.
+
+But after, what seemed to the frightened girl, a very long time she
+ventured to poke her head out again, just as she heard a stealthful step
+on the stairs.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped aloud. Then "Vita!" she called faintly.
+
+"Yes, I come. Sh-s-!"
+
+Nora had not expected to hear that voice. She merely called Vita because
+she did not want to call Cousin Ted, and she felt the intruder was
+dangerously near. But there was Vita!
+
+"What is it? You have bad dream?" asked the maid in a whisper, standing
+now beside the bed.
+
+"No, it was no dream." Nora's voice was not very low, in fact she was
+angry. "I did hear things and there's no use telling me it was the wind.
+It wasn't," she snapped.
+
+"Sh-s-!" again Vita warned. "It is no good to wake cousins. I was up the
+stairs for that old window. It slam--you hear it?"
+
+"What could slam a window tonight?"
+
+"I do-no!" in the way foreigners have of not understanding when
+ignorance is more convenient. "I must go to bed now. You all right?"
+
+"Say Vita!" charged Nora. "If you don't tell me the truth
+I'll--I'll--just shout!"
+
+"No, not too much noise," coaxed the big woman, who in her night robe
+looked like a masquerade figure. "What do you want I should get you?"
+
+"Nothing. I don't want anything but for you to tell me who is up in that
+attic!" demanded Nora sharply.
+
+"Me--Vittoria, is up attic."
+
+"Who was with you?"
+
+"Cap."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"He go down--back way."
+
+"Now Vita--" Nora stopped. She was baffled. This woman could confuse her
+so and then walk off demurely, just as she had done that other night.
+Finally Nora began again:
+
+"All right, Vita, but you just listen." She was shaking a small finger
+toward the face with the black flashing eyes. "If you don't tell me all
+about your secret I shall tell Uncle Jerry. Now do you understand?"
+
+"Secret? What is 'secret'?"
+
+"The thing up in the attic is a secret," persisted Nora, although she
+feared her voice might disturb the others now.
+
+"That thing big Cap. He always at night sniff so much," said Vita. "Now,
+I go to bed," she spoke this very emphatically. "I go to bed and you go
+to sleep."
+
+"All right, go," ordered Nora. "And don't you dare go up in that attic
+again tonight. I was just having the most----"
+
+But her audience had vanished and the house was empty, so to speak, so
+why orate or harangue?
+
+All sleep and its delightful attributes had flown. Nora was so wide
+awake she felt she would never sleep again, and worse still, she was
+angry. What did that old Vita mean by her attic tricks? If it were she
+who was up there why did she moan? And if it were something else why did
+the woman try to conceal it?
+
+"Now, I have a Scout duty," Nora promised herself. "I must fathom that
+mystery and protect Cousin Theodora and Cousin Gerald from that
+unscrupulous woman." Visions of crimes hidden in the attic, memory of
+her own incarceration there when the trap door, as she now regarded the
+door with the spring lock snapped shut, filtered through her excited
+brain, and when she remembered how she had almost died up there, and how
+it might have been years before her skeleton would have been discovered,
+just as so many others had fared on secret attic trips, it did seem to
+Nora that she should arise at once and immediately start her
+investigations. Humor and tragedy hopelessly mixed.
+
+"But it's so late," she figured out, "and would it be fair to wake
+Cousin Ted when she is so tired and after her taking me to that
+beautiful picture?"
+
+Convincing herself that this was why she did not immediately begin her
+brave Scout work, she once more attempted to quiet her nerves by
+thinking of all the sheep Miss Baily had recommended to skip over fences
+and lull one to sleep.
+
+But sleep was far out of the reach of frisky sheep, and Nora lay there
+thinking of so many things, her head threatened to ache and a miserable
+day promised to dawn upon her if she did not soon succumb.
+
+"Perhaps I wronged poor Vita. There may not have been anything wicked in
+the attic after all," she soothed herself. "Why couldn't she go up there
+if she wanted to? And maybe she stubbed her toe."
+
+It was not very consoling but the best Nora could work up in the way of
+consolation. One thing certain, Vita was honorable. She was a trusted
+servant, and in the short time Nora had been at the Nest, many small
+favors, peculiar to good cooks, had come Nora's way through Vita's
+intervention.
+
+Such happy thoughts finally dispelled the other unfriendly mental
+visitors, and when Vita stole past the door again and looked in through
+the darkness, all she heard was the even breathing of little Nora Blair,
+who might or might not have been dreaming of horrible attic noises.
+
+The day brings wisdom, and when Nora again dressed in the borrowed khaki
+suit (she had suddenly taken a dislike to her own fancy dresses), the
+glorious sunshine of the bright summer morning mocked the terrors of the
+night.
+
+A step in the hall. "I bring your fruit," said Vita kindly through the
+open door; and there she stood with a small dish of such delicious
+berries to be eaten off stems by hand--surely Nora had wronged this
+kind, tender-hearted foreigner.
+
+Nora was somewhat conscience stricken as she accepted the peace
+offering. "Oh, thank you, Vita," she exclaimed. "I was just coming
+down."
+
+"But the Jerries are out early and you no need hurry," explained Vita.
+"I make nice breakfast when you come."
+
+"Cousin Ted gone out?" asked Nora.
+
+"Yes, she say you stay home, not go after them, they must 'bob swamp.'"
+
+"Bob swamp? Oh, you mean use the plumb-bob in the swamp. I understand,
+Vita." It was really remarkable how well both understood today and how
+dense both had been last night. "Very well, I'll eat my fruit here by
+the window, and later try your lovely biscuits," said Nora, with a smile
+rarely used outside the family.
+
+The housemaid shuffled off. Looking after her, Nora wondered.
+
+"I do believe she is trying to keep on good terms with me for
+something--something queer," she decided. "Certainly she is afraid I
+will tell Cousin Ted about the attic business." She paused with a big
+red strawberry half way to her lips. "Well, I have a secret, anyhow,"
+she decided, "and I like Alma, she makes me think of myself--she is sort
+of shy and sensitive. Perhaps I shall make her my confidante."
+
+Of all the Scouts Alma seemed most congenial, and having a real secret
+was the first definite step in Nora's summer career. But are secrets
+wise and are they safe to carry around in so big and open a place as
+Rocky Ledge?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WAIF OF THE WILDWOODS
+
+
+It was so much better than dreams. Not only did Nora feel the importance
+of having a real secret, but she also realized that the same
+circumstance had actually made Vita her abject slave. Not a wish was
+expressed by the visitor in Vita's presence but the maid would, if it
+were possible at all, see to its fulfillment.
+
+"I believe I'll tell Alma," Nora decided one morning after a visit and
+return to and from Camp Chickadee. Almost daily she made those trips and
+the Scouts had become such friends with her she was now regarded quite
+as one of their number.
+
+Expecting to join formally as soon as the other candidates of Rocky
+Ledge were ready and the Counsellor should come down from the city, Nora
+studied her manual and prepared for the honor. In the meantime she was
+privileged to enjoy many of the Scout activities.
+
+But "the secret" was really more engrossing just now. It provided her
+with a personal importance--what girl does not enjoy the possession of a
+knowledge others have not and everyone would love to have?
+
+It was thrilling. Alma, the Tenderfoot Scout, who from the first had
+espoused Nora's cause and even confided in her the real story of the
+woodland prince, met her daily at a wonderful rendezvous, and there the
+two girls, away from teasing companions, enjoyed confidences and built
+air castles.
+
+"I'll tell her today," the resolve was repeated as Nora started out.
+
+She arrived first, and while waiting had a race with Cap all the way to
+the Three Oaks and back again.
+
+"Dogs have to run faster," explained Nora breathlessly, when Cap won by
+more than he needed to establish his claim. "If you could not run faster
+than human beings, Cap, you could never have been made a Red Cross
+messenger, as you were in the awful war."
+
+The arrival of Alma cut short the encomium. Salutations were brief for
+both were eager to "tell each other a lot of things."
+
+"Alma, do you think you could keep a secret?" The question was so trite
+and time worn Alma smiled before answering in the affirmative.
+
+"Because," continued Nora, "this is the biggest secret I have ever had,
+and Barbara and I have had a great many."
+
+"I have to have secrets," returned Alma, "because none of the girls seem
+to understand me. They tease, you know, they almost made me homesick one
+night; they kept teasing and teasing about the prince; and Miss Beckwith
+had a hard time to make me stop crying."
+
+Nora winced. "Well, this isn't that sort of a secret," she said
+presently. "It's about our attic."
+
+"What about it?"
+
+"Oh, it's a lot to tell. We had better sit on the big log under the
+chestnut tree and be comfortable before I start."
+
+Then began the story of the first night at Wildwoods when Nora was
+determined to sleep in the attic. Many an exclamation of surprise was
+thrown in by the more practical Alma, but this in no way turned the
+narrator from her course. She sent thrill after thrill up and down
+Alma's spine, and she even voiced a suspicion that Vita might have a
+member of "some den of thieves hidden in the attic, although she is the
+soul of honesty," Nora was particular to state.
+
+But it was the incident that occurred the night they went to Lenox that
+really caused Alma to exclaim tragically:
+
+"Nora, you should tell Mrs. Manton! It is not safe to hide anything so
+serious as that. Suppose the Thing comes crawling down some night and
+Vita is not there to drive it back?"
+
+"Oh, she doesn't drive it back," Nora had not actually visualized the
+terror in that way. "She just kept me from finding out----"
+
+"What?" interrupted Alma when Nora paused from sheer excitement.
+
+"I don't know what!"
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+"Well, maybe it's a--really Alma, I don't dare think. I did not know how
+frightened I was till I started talking about it. Why, I am just all
+creeps," admitted Nora. "Here Cap," she shouted, as the dog attempted to
+wander off, "don't go away. Come on, Alma. I guess we had better go out
+by the road. Why, I am just as frightened as if the--Thing were around
+here!" she gasped.
+
+"Maybe it is," said Alma cruelly, picking up her knitting upon which she
+had not taken a stitch, and following Nora out of the little woodland
+into the more open field that flanked the narrow roadway.
+
+They hurried. Alma tripped and Nora almost screamed.
+
+"Why, what is the matter?" asked the Scout. "You haven't seen anything?"
+
+"No, but I feel so queer. You know, Alma" (she loved an audience), "I am
+queer and I do believe I sometimes feel things in advance. Miss Baily
+always said I did."
+
+"She must have been queer herself," retorted Alma. "I had those wild
+ideas, too, until I joined the Scouts. That's the reason Mother had me
+join. She said I was too much alone----"
+
+It was difficult to talk while hurrying over newly-cut stumps with which
+the field was so thickly strewn. The surveyor's men had hewn many a fine
+young birch and numbers of ambitious young maples there, for this was
+one of the forests lately cleared.
+
+"Here come the girls," exclaimed Nora, as they looked down the road.
+"Alma, promise not to say a single word----"
+
+"Why, Nora Blair! As if I would divulge a secret----"
+
+"Excuse me, Alma. I did not mean just that. But when one does not
+realize the importance----"
+
+"I do realize it. But it's all right, Nora. I know just how you feel,"
+conceded Alma, amiably. "There. I have to go with Pell to get some
+grasses from the Ledge. I'm sorry I can't walk home with you. You don't
+mind----"
+
+"Not in the least, Alma. I was just jumpy while we talked--that way.
+Besides, I always have Cap. Good bye. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
+
+"Won't you wait for the girls?"
+
+"I'm afraid if I do I'll stay talking. Hello," she called out as Pell
+and Thistle came up. "Alma and I have had such a lovely time out in the
+oak woods I am late for my--chores," she finished, laughing.
+
+"What do you chore, Nora?" asked Pell. Her face was beaming with the
+health of camp life and her voice vibrated youth and happiness.
+
+"She chores chores of course," Thistle assisted. "I am sure the Nest is
+a lot nicer place to live and work in than Camp Chickadee--when Pell
+Mell is our inspector," she finished, with a pout.
+
+"Nora, would you believe it that wretched girl left her shoes outside of
+camp last night and this morning they were gone--to a goat preserve
+somewhere," explained Pell. "She has my second best 'sneaks' on now, yet
+she will malign me----"
+
+"Why and whither away?" interrupted Thistle, seeing Nora about to
+escape.
+
+"Oh, I really must. I'll see you later," promised the blonde girl, whose
+hair, always so fair, seemed to have taken on a shade of pure gold since
+exposed to the open sunshine of Rocky Ledge.
+
+So with paths divided they separated, and that was how it came to pass
+that Nora was alone when she encountered the wonderful adventure.
+
+Taking to the lane path, a walk she seldom thought of following, Nora,
+keyed up with her excitement following the telling of her story to Alma,
+felt she must get off somewhere and "collect herself" before going back
+to the house.
+
+Perhaps her head was down, and she may have ventured along as do much
+older and more serious folk when engaged in some perplexing problem, at
+any rate Nora was down the lane and into a strange grove before she
+realized it.
+
+She looked up with a start. "Where ever am I?" she said, if not aloud,
+certainly loud enough for her own hearing.
+
+The place was a veritable camp of low pines, and so dark it was beneath
+the thickly woven boughs, Nora felt as if she had stepped from day to
+night.
+
+"But so pretty," she commented. Then she looked about for Cap. It would
+not be wise to stray into such a lonely place without his reliable
+protection. He marched up with a very military air as she called his
+name. Evidently the place, strange to Nora, was familiar to him, for he
+did not so much as raise his shaggy head to glance around him.
+
+"Stay here," she whispered. Then, turning to survey the place, she
+almost froze with fright. Over in under a very low tree she saw
+something move--it was like a bundle of rags and it--yes, it had a head!
+
+"Oh, mercy!" she gasped. "What's that?"
+
+The black bundle rolled over and sat up. Two big, brown eyes glared at
+her! The head was covered with a shawl. Was it a woman?
+
+Frozen now with genuine fright Nora tried to move, but felt more like
+sinking down.
+
+"Oh!" she breathed. Then she saw how small it was. There! It was humping
+up. Like a queer sort of animal the bundle took shape on huddled
+shoulders, and from the outline eyes glared.
+
+It was not more than twenty feet from where Nora stood, but the almost
+night darkness of the grove helped make illusions terrifying.
+
+Now it was on knees and now it stood up!
+
+"Oh," cried Nora. "Who are you?"
+
+A little girl--a poor little ragged girl, evidently more frightened than
+Nora herself.
+
+"Oh, do come here," cried Nora, as soon as she saw how she had been
+deceived. "I won't hurt you."
+
+The child was now standing. What a sorry little figure! The part that
+was not eyes seemed just rags, and two bare feet pressed upon the brown
+pine needles like chunks of withered wood. Her head was covered with an
+ugly gray scarf and yet the day was warm enough to feel the sun's rays
+even through the dense trees.
+
+"What's your name, little girl?" asked Nora, venturing a step nearer.
+
+The eyes rolled and then a smile broke over that frightened face. "I'm
+Lucia," replied the child, and her voice was as pretty as her name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LADY BOUNTIFUL JUNIOR
+
+
+Hearing that small, fluty voice Nora sighed with relief.
+
+"Come here, little girl," she said gently. "I won't hurt you."
+
+"Please, I can't. I must run----"
+
+"Oh, no; don't run," begged Nora, as the child showed every sign of
+escaping. "I am all alone. I just want to talk to you."
+
+"But I must not. I have to run," insisted the other.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because----" the voice had dropped many tones.
+
+"Will any one hurt you if you don't?" This was merely a chance question
+of Nora's. She could not think quickly of just the right thing to say
+and was anxious to detain the child.
+
+"Yes, no, maybe," a shrug of the small shoulders proclaimed foreign
+mannerisms. Her dark eyes also bespoke the alien.
+
+"Well, I won't let anyone hurt you," declared Nora bravely. "I'm a Girl
+Scout, do you know what that means?"
+
+"Yes, I know. It means crazy," promptly replied Lucia.
+
+"Crazy?" Nora was somewhat taken back. Then it dawned upon her that
+foreigners had a way of saying things--perhaps--"crazy" meant something
+else to the child.
+
+"Why do you say 'crazy'?" Nora asked next.
+
+"Oh, they dress funny, and they run all over and they climb trees
+like--crazy," said Lucia. Nora saw she was correct in her free
+translation. Crazy was a comprehensive term to Lucia.
+
+"Don't you like them, the Scouts?" pressed Nora.
+
+"The little one--I like. The big ones chase me one day," came the
+indifferent answer. "I have to go, I must run sure now," declared Lucia,
+putting out her small hands to make a hole in the bushes through which
+to escape.
+
+"Oh, please don't go yet," begged Nora. "I have just found you and I
+want to--know you."
+
+"I don't dast," replied Lucia. "I have to hide now," she was getting
+through the break when Nora took hold of the long skirt. At this Lucia
+looked around sharply, and her dark eyes flashed dangerously.
+
+"Are you hungry?" Nora asked. This was a tactful thing to ask and
+offered immediate postponement of flight for Lucia.
+
+"Sure," she replied, beaming. "What you got?"
+
+"Nothing--just now," faltered Nora. "But I can bring you lots of good
+things. You wait here----"
+
+"Oh, no, I get caught," interrupted the woods wraith. "Then I
+ketch--it."
+
+Nora was sorely puzzled, but being Nora she had no idea of allowing such
+an interest to escape. She said next: "If you tell me where to leave
+things for you, I'll bring them and you can get them when no one is
+around. Would that be all right?"
+
+"Maybe," replied the exasperating Lucia. "But when you get it?"
+
+"Oh, any time, I live near here and I can just run over and be back
+before you have to go. Where do you go to?"
+
+"I can't tell," answered Lucia with more foreign tone than she had yet
+assumed.
+
+"You mean you do not dare tell me where you live?"
+
+"Yes, that's what I mean."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't dast," again came that quaint, childish negative.
+
+"Who would do anything to you?"
+
+"Nick."
+
+If Nora was eager to talk, surely Lucia was determined to be very brief.
+What could she mean by "Nick."
+
+Again Lucia held the bush back into an open gate. And again Nora tugged
+at the skirt.
+
+"If I bring you a lovely sweet pie will you come back and talk to me
+here?" begged Nora.
+
+"Where will you put the pie?"
+
+"Can't you come and get it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+It was aggravating. The child seemed purposely obtuse. Nora had an
+instinctive feeling that somehow she was the object of abuse. Her
+cringing manner indicated oppression.
+
+"Now, Lucia," she began again, "if you come here every day I'll come all
+alone, except for Cap, and I'll bring you lovely things to eat. Wouldn't
+you like that?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Then you will come?"
+
+"What time?"
+
+"In the morning--about this time. Would that be all right for you?"
+
+"If Nick is gone."
+
+"Who is Nick?"
+
+"Very bad man. I hate Nick." This last sentence was so purely American,
+that even Nora guessed the child had come from mixed surroundings.
+Holding to her shawl Nora could feel, she imagined, a shudder pass
+through the slim frame at the very mention of the name Nick.
+
+Lucia dragged her scarf off a bush. "I go now," she said with just a
+tinge of politeness. "You bring pie?"
+
+"Yes, a big pie. Don't forget to come."
+
+"I come--sure."
+
+The queer figure stood for a moment out in the clear sunlight, and Nora
+had a chance to see her features. She was pretty, strikingly so, in
+spite of her pinched cheeks and her too lustrous eyes.
+
+"Please--you don't tell anybody?" came the appeal. "I work all day and
+pull weeds, but like to sleep little bit by the big trees, sometimes."
+
+Then Nora guessed. "You mean you are sick and come here to rest?"
+
+"Please."
+
+"Well, you just come here whenever you want to, Lucia," said Nora with
+feeling. "The idea of a tiny tot like you working at pulling weeds! And
+with all those heavy rags on you! It's a shame!" she declared
+indignantly.
+
+"You don't tell?" the child persisted anxiously.
+
+"No, Lucia. I'll never tell. I have a lot of secrets, and this one I
+won't even tell Alma."
+
+"Good bye."
+
+Like a frightened animal the waif sped across the field and dodged into
+the next clump of shrubbery.
+
+"She is afraid of being seen," reasoned Nora. "Who ever saw such a
+pitiful little thing?"
+
+Then it dawned upon her that Cap had not even sniffed suspiciously.
+
+"Did you like her, Cap?" she asked, patting the patient animal, that all
+during the broken conversation had lain at Nora's feet without so much
+as a single growl. "Did you feel sorry for her, too, Cap?"
+
+He may have or there may have been some other reason for his
+indifference, but now he was willing and anxious to go home. It was
+lunch time and Cap never needed an announcement.
+
+Nora followed him. She was too astonished to know even what to think.
+That a little beggar girl should hide in the bushes to rest from hard
+work!
+
+"I'll bring her the nicest things Vita can bake," she concluded. Then
+came the thought: How would she get Vita to give her the supplies
+without making known the use she was to put them to?
+
+Picnics were common. These would surely supply an excuse for carrying
+out food, and, after all, wouldn't it be a picnic for Lucia?
+
+Nora's heart was fluttering.
+
+"I never knew what a vacation was before," she told Cap. "Here I am
+having a love of a time and doing things worth remembering."
+
+How different from the fashionable summers she had been accustomed to!
+Nowadays she hardly had time to look in a glass, and yet she was
+enjoying every hour. It was like discovering something new continually,
+and did Nora but know the secret of the adventure it was simply that she
+was discovering her own resources--she was getting acquainted with Nora
+Blair.
+
+But miracles are not common, and Nora was not yet completely transformed
+from a sensitive, secretive girl, to an honest, frank, fearless Girl
+Scout.
+
+Even the new discovery of Lucia and her sad plight was now locked up in
+her breast.
+
+But should it have been?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A PICNIC AND OTHERWISE
+
+
+A rush of events followed. Chief among them was that of a Girl Scout
+picnic, inaugurated by Ted and Jerry, carried out by Nora and enjoyed by
+all.
+
+It was a delightful hike out to the Ledge, that big, rugged rock that
+leaned over a pretty, disjoined lake, made up of tributaries from
+springs and rain flows. Rocky Ledge was exactly that--narrow, rocky; a
+table or shelf that leaned out just far enough to form a little portico
+over the frivolous waters beneath. It was a charmed spot, with many
+thrilling legends to its credit, and being different from the entire
+scenery surrounding, it gave the place its name--just like one girl
+different from her companions will stand out as an example, if she
+happens to be that kind of different that is interesting.
+
+Not that other parts of this territory were commonplace. No, indeed.
+There was a fertile farm country, Jerry's precious forests, Ted's
+wonderful butterfly haunts and even Nora's cedar groves; but these did
+not touch the high spot enjoyed by that novel little ledge; hence the
+whole territory was known as Rocky Ledge.
+
+The picnic marked midsummer's festivity. Chickadee Patrol invited
+members from other camps out to the Ledge, and when Pell insisted that
+Thistle and her aids "do up enough grub" for those invited, a strike was
+narrowly averted.
+
+"You know, Pell Mell, the Mantons will bring barrels of things to eat,
+so why should we make samples of our miserable home-cooking failures?"
+demanded Thistle. Betta was standing hard by egging her on.
+
+"They will bring the lunch, that is, The Lunch, but what about a little
+four o'clock snack? There are silver springs out there with water cress
+on the cob, and I know our girls are never loath to nibble a bite or two
+when out on location," Pell reminded her mutinous crew. That was Pell.
+She had a way of getting things done and at the same time making a joke
+of it.
+
+"Is Nora going to be inducted?" asked Betta. Next to Alma, Betta was the
+most avowed champion of the girl from the Nest.
+
+"Yes, we had a letter today and Becky told us we would have a business
+meeting Wednesday, when your precious Babe Nora will be led to the
+stake. She will accept the halter of allegiance to Pell, Betta and the
+rest of the mob----"
+
+"If you feel so frisky, Pell, I wish you would work off some of the
+extra on this tin can. I am supposed to open it with a souvenir trick
+can opener. I am sure Betta brought it from the state fair, B. C. 150.
+It has all the ear marks of antiquity without any of the teeth,"
+declared Wyn, who was struggling with an implement, curious and
+wonderful.
+
+"That's a perfectly good can opener," defended Betta. "Jimbsy purloined
+it from his own mother's table----"
+
+"Which supports my theory," interrupted Wyn. "His mother's table is none
+other than antique. But there! It did cut--my hand into the bargain,"
+and she defied all her first-aid rules by sticking a finger in her
+mouth. "Glad it cut something."
+
+"Where's Alma?" asked Laddie. "She always gets out of the drudgery."
+
+"Alma was tagged along to town to buy things," explained Thistle. "Becky
+is hearing her lessons on the way. Alma is our little freshman, you
+know, girls, and while she doesn't wear mourning, she is often in
+sorrow."
+
+"She has a great time with Nora, I notice," remarked Doro. "I fancy
+between the two of them they have fixed it up about the prince.
+Shouldn't be a bit surprised if they invited him to the picnic."
+
+"Now, remember," ordered Wyn, "don't dare say prince. Say duke if you
+must, but spare Alma's feelings on the princeling. But honestly, girls,
+wasn't it a joke?"
+
+"Not to Alma," answered Treble. "She certainly had a vision if she did
+not see a prince. Here she comes. Look at the bundles! Land sakes alive!
+If it's more grub I'm going to duck. My fingers are mooing now from
+spreading butter," and Treble plastered a slab of the yellow paste on a
+square of bread, quite as if it were intended as mortar for a
+sky-scraper.
+
+An hour later they were on their way. Nora might have ridden out to the
+Ledge in the little runabout, but she preferred to walk with the girls.
+
+"I'm so excited about joining," she confided to Betta and Alma, her hike
+partners. "I feel as if I were going to have my final exams."
+
+"You don't want to," advised Betta. "You know your manual perfectly, and
+have nothing to worry about. But we shall all be so glad, Nora, when you
+are really a Scout. It is all well enough to be a lone Scout out in the
+wilderness, but while we're around there is no sense in such isolation."
+
+"The Lone Scout! Oh, I was fascinated reading about the provisions for
+such an individual arrangement. Just imagine being a troop of one," said
+Nora.
+
+"About as interesting as Laddie's collection of one piece of genuine
+mica," replied Betta. "As much as I detest the girls" (she gave Alma's
+arms an affectionate squeeze in explanation), "still, I would rather be
+pestered with them than to be a Lone Scout on the Big Mountain. There,
+Nora! That would make a stunning title for your coming book."
+
+"What book?" demanded the unsuspecting Nora.
+
+"The one that is coming next," serenely replied Betta. "But let us
+hasten! See yon girls are turning into the other yon road," she went on.
+"We betta----"
+
+A warning chuckle from Alma, cut short her "Betta." Until this
+attractive girl learned to respect the all-American R she would never
+know peace with her companions.
+
+Joining the others the merry party hiked along; singing, whistling,
+calling, laughing and making noises peculiar to girls out on picnics
+bent.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Manton rode to the Ledge, deposited their treat and were
+ready to be on their way and leave the girls to their own good time,
+almost as soon as the party arrived.
+
+"Oh, stay," besought Pell. "We are counting on having you in for our
+games----"
+
+"I wish I could," replied the big brown Jerry. "But the fact is this
+wife of mine has planned a little picnic all of her own. You see, when
+she got me in on this she knew I could not back out on hers. Yes," he
+sighed affectedly, "she has made me promise to take her out canoeing,
+and I am not sure what terror she has set for me at the end of the
+stream."
+
+"Oh, are you really going down the stream?" cried Treble. "I have just
+longed for a ride down through the rapids----"
+
+"Well, you best not take it," spoke up Mrs. Ted. "I am going down the
+stream only to explore. And I would not go without the strong arm of a
+man at the keel."
+
+"Oh, Jimbsy, where art thou?" wailed Thistle. "Why didn't we treat you
+right! Your gallant craft----"
+
+"Get the water there, Cicero," shouted Doro. "This lunch is to have
+lemonade a la carte, and there isn't a drop of water in the house. Sorry
+to disturb the oration----"
+
+"Gimme the pail," snapped the interrupted Thistle. "I never yet started
+anything that Doro didn't finish."
+
+But even the delightful lunch, served on a grassy table with every girl
+holding down her own table cloth, for a light little breeze flirted
+outrageously with the service--even all this did not tempt the Scouts to
+tarry long from the delights of the great, wild open; and before the
+normal eating hour had passed the girls were formed in groups and
+circles, to suit their individual and collective tastes, and through
+field and glen their laughter supplied the marching tune.
+
+Nora was clinging to Alma, with a motive. She had seen the great field
+of corn just behind the Ledge, where fertility could be depended upon,
+and she was wondering, secretly, if little Lucia might pick weeds out
+there?
+
+"Could we go over to those gardens?" she asked the leaders, when the
+other girls had all chosen their points for exploration.
+
+"Why, certainly. I am glad to see that you are interested in real
+gardens," replied Miss Beckwith. "Those are called the Italian gardens
+because Italians work there, not because they bear any resemblance to
+the wonderful gardens of Italy."
+
+The temptation was strong within Nora to tell Alma just why she wanted
+to go up close to the big women with hoes and rakes; but the memory of
+Lucia's dark eyes, that looked so like dewy pansies when the child
+begged: "You will never tell," that memory sealed Nora's lips, while she
+eagerly sought out any small figure that might be that of the little
+slave of labor.
+
+"I don't like those horrid women," said Alma. "Why don't you want to go
+over the other way, out into the pretty woodlands, Nora? Come on and
+let's run back. I am almost afraid of that ugly creature coming over
+that dug-up place," Alma declared.
+
+"I don't like her, either," admitted Nora. "I only wanted to see--them
+work--close by."
+
+"Going in for scientific gardening when we make you a real Scout?" Alma
+continued, as they both hurried back to the uncultivated territory.
+"Lots of girls are trying it, but it's wickedly hard on the hands."
+
+"Oh, I hadn't thought of that, Alma. But I just----" She stopped and
+looked frankly into Alma's gray eyes. "Alma," she began again with an
+unexpected sigh, "would you think me mean if I asked you to do something
+to help me without, well, without explaining fully?" she floundered.
+
+"Why, no, certainly not, Nora. You must have good reason for not wanting
+to confide----"
+
+"I do want to confide," Nora quickly took up the charge. "But this is
+not my own affair. I have promised not to tell."
+
+"Then don't bother to explain," said Alma, generously. "I'll do all I
+can to help you. I am sure it's for a good cause."
+
+"The noblest charity----" Nora checked herself. "I'll tell you. I want
+to take my picnic lunch to--some place----" It was next to impossible to
+go on without going all the way.
+
+"Nora, darling! You are truly a brave Scout!" declared the admiring
+Alma. "There you haven't touched your lovely lunch. Saved it for a
+secret charity. Just you wait until you are received into the band of
+Chickadees! I'll be your sponsor if I am allowed it, and I'll find a
+way----"
+
+"Alma! Alma!" gasped Nora, tragically. "You really must do nothing of
+the kind. As happy as I am now at the idea of being a Scout, I shouldn't
+even join if I thought that in any way this secret would become known."
+She was breathless at the very thought, and had jerked Alma to a
+standstill right in the middle of a mud patch, in her excitement.
+
+"Oh, don't worry," soothed Alma. "I had no idea of telling any part of
+the secret, that, of course, I really don't know anything about. I was
+just planning what I might say to your especial credit if the promoter
+should call upon me," she finished with a tinge of disappointment.
+
+"Then help me carry my lunch back to--the woods near our house," said
+Nora while the glance she exchanged was a unspoken volume.
+
+"I hope you are not going to give it away to some wild animal," Alma
+could not refrain from remarking.
+
+"Oh, no indeed," Nora assured her companion.
+
+"Then why do you not eat it?"
+
+"I have promised----"
+
+"Maybe it's Jimmie," said Alma, with a sly little chuckle.
+
+"Jimmie! Why I have never spoken to him!"
+
+"Oh, you should," the Scout assured her. "He is such a nice, useful
+boy."
+
+"Does he work on the farms?" asked Nora seriously.
+
+"I guess he doesn't really work any place in particular, but almost
+every place in general," replied Alma. "But let's hurry. The others will
+think we got hoed in with the corn."
+
+So they did hurry back to the picnic and back to their strategy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE LITTLE LORD'S CONFESSION
+
+
+It was all over. Nora had been made a Girl Scout. To celebrate the
+enrollment Jerry and Ted gave a "large party" at the Nest, and of all
+her memorable social functions, this to Nora seemed most delightful.
+
+Every one came, even Becky the patrol leader, and in their uniforms all
+freshly pressed out, the white summer blouse being allowed for the
+festive occasion, the party looked quite novel, and the girls had a
+wonderful time, dancing, playing games and inventing new fun provokers
+at every turn. Nora as the guest of honor was honored indeed, and
+accepted her compliments most gracefully.
+
+"It was all a matter of opportunity," said Ted aside to Jerry, referring
+to Nora's change of heart. "She is just as good a Scout as any of them."
+This was a proud boast.
+
+"The woods are full of them," said Jerry the champion of all girls,
+Scouts and near Scouts. "Just give them the chance."
+
+But up in her own room Nora was pondering. "It's just like getting
+married," she reflected. "That is, I guess it is," she amended wisely.
+"One must clear up every secret and fix all the old troubles when one
+gets married, and one must clear up all the old worries and secrets when
+she joins the Scouts," concluded the systematic, little self-appointed
+conscience cleaner.
+
+There was that matter of the prince. Never did Alma mention it nor never
+did Nora hear any of the other Scouts refer to it without feeling
+guilty.
+
+"I just ought to tell Alma the whole truth," she was now deciding. It
+was the day after the great event.
+
+But came the thought of Alma's certain surprise that she, Nora, her true
+friend and confidante, should have deceived her so long.
+
+Pride did not melt into humility with the bestowing of the pretty Scout
+emblem, so Nora did not see her way clear to tell that silly story of
+her Lord Fauntleroy escapade. She was repeating her Scout promise "To do
+my duty to God and Country and to help others at all times," and she
+mentally made the promise again.
+
+"To help others." That clause charged her. Was she helping Alma? Did she
+not know, really, that the one glimpse of the person in velvets had left
+kind and considerate little Alma guessing ever since, and also that it
+had put her in a ridiculous position with her companions?
+
+"I know, I'll write her a letter." The inspiration satisfied, and thus
+started the most remarkable correspondence--but let others tell it.
+
+"She got a letter!" exclaimed Wyn.
+
+"What's wonderful about that?" asked Betta.
+
+"It's from the prince, that's what," declared the first speaker.
+
+"Prince!"
+
+"The very same," chimed in Treble, stretching her long self from the
+bench to the boat swing.
+
+"What nonsense!" scoffed Betta. "Alma may be romantic, but she is not
+crazy." (Lucia to the contrary.)
+
+"Just ask her," suggested Wyn. "She's hugging that letter as tight as
+tu' pence. I always told you Alma was madly in love----"
+
+"Hush!" Doro's warning suspended operations along that line. Alma was
+upon them.
+
+"Letter?" asked Wyn, innocently.
+
+"Yes, and if you like you may read it. It's from----"
+
+"The prince?" blurted Treble, shooting her hand out.
+
+"I'm corporal," said Thistle, pompously. "Let me have it, dear."
+
+"Perhaps I should read it myself," said Alma, pettishly, thus prolonging
+the agony. "It is so--personal."
+
+"Yes, do," begged Wyn, coiling and uncoiling in sheer expectancy.
+
+"Here's a seat," offered Betta.
+
+"The sun's there," warned Thistle amiably. "Take this seat, Alma," and
+she moved over so generously, the bench all but tipped end on end.
+
+Every one waited. Alma took out her letter--it was in her crocheted bag
+and one could see how she treasured it.
+
+What a thrill!
+
+But Treble pinched Betta and almost spoiled the start.
+
+"I received it this morning," said Alma, "and, of course, it didn't come
+through the mail."
+
+"How?" asked Wyn.
+
+"Jimmie!" replied Alma.
+
+"Oh-o-o-o-oh!"
+
+The shout was mortifying, Betta came to the rescue.
+
+"Jimmie isn't your prince--Alma?" she asked sweetly.
+
+"Jimmie!" Alma's tone was caustic. "As if that freckled face----"
+
+"Here! Easy on the Jimbsy!" warned Treble. "He's a perfectly fine little
+Scout, and if ever this patrol extends to co-ed----!"
+
+"Let Alma read her letter," ordered Thistle, the corporal.
+
+"How'd you say you got it?" persisted Wyn.
+
+"Jimmie brought it."
+
+"Where did he get it?" again asked the irrepressible Wyn.
+
+"He was pledged not to tell, but just see the stationery." The envelope
+was passed around; all commented favorably.
+
+"You see," began Alma, "this was written as a confession."
+
+The older girl shouted again. Treble nudged Wyn almost off the bench.
+
+"Don't mind them, Alma, I'm listening," said Betta sharply.
+
+"Oh, we all are," chimed in Doro.
+
+Alma folded her letter. "If you are--going to--tease----" she faltered.
+
+"Here!" yelled Thistle, quite uncorporal like, "The very first one that
+speaks will be dumped into the lake. Proceed Alma."
+
+From that point things went along better. Again Alma looked promising.
+
+"As I said, the letter is a confession." Then ignoring a number of
+subdued interruptions, she went on. "It is signed 'Your loving prince.'"
+
+Could you blame them for howling?
+
+"Your loving--prince!!!!" repeated Wynnie. "And is there a Jimbsy to
+that?"
+
+"I told you," said the offended Alma, "the only thing Jimmie had to do
+with it was to deliver it."
+
+"So far as you know," interjected Doro, "But Jimmie is a far-sighted
+lad."
+
+"Let me read it, Alma," said Thistle in desperation. "I can't see why
+some girls can't have more manners."
+
+"And why some can't have some?" retaliated Treble.
+
+"Once more, shall I read it?" asked Alma, sighing.
+
+"You shall," declared Betta. "The first one that interrupts---- Oh, I
+say girls, it is almost time for drill. Have some sense and let's hear
+it."
+
+Murmurs approved.
+
+"'I feel constrained to write this, dear,'" Alma actually read,
+"'because I feel I have done you a great injustice.'" (Moans.)
+
+"'After you saw me and I fleed----'" Alma paused. "He means flew, of
+course."
+
+This started another outburst, and what he didn't mean by "fleed" simply
+wasn't worth meaning.
+
+"Go ahead, Alma, we know he--fleed," prompted Betta.
+
+"'After I ran'" (prudent Alma), "'I never had the courage to make myself
+known to you,'" she perused. "'But when I heard your companions taunt
+you----'"
+
+"There! Taunting her! I told you to be good----" Wyn's interruption was
+inevitable.
+
+"It is no use in my trying to be sociable," said the sensitive Alma.
+"But I thought you would all be interested."
+
+"There is not much more to read," announced the popular member. "He just
+says that soon--soon he will come."
+
+"Oh, joy!" shouted Doro, rolling over in the grass. "Let me know in
+time!"
+
+"They're just idiots, Alma. Come on with me and leave them to guess the
+rest," proposed the astute Betta, the confidante of girls. "_I_ want to
+hear it if nobody else does."
+
+Without even a giggle they jumped up and seized Alma. One could not be
+sure whose arm was most restraining, but she changed her mind about
+going with Betta. Instead she opened the famed sheet again and read:
+
+"'My conscience has troubled me ever since, dear, but I was forced to do
+as I did. Drop your answer----'" She paused. "I don't intend to read
+that part," she calmly announced, and no amount of coaxing would induce
+her to relent. No one should know where the letter to the prince was to
+be mailed, Alma was determined on that point at least.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A DESERTED TRYST
+
+
+Nora was disconsolate. For two days the dainties left for Lucia had
+remained untouched. The bread box which Vita had given her to play with,
+and into which the food was deposited for Lucia, stood upon the tree
+stump with the sliced lamb, the piece of cake, and the big orange which
+comprised the last installment offered by the sympathetic Nora, just as
+she had left it.
+
+"Can anything have happened to her?" Nora asked herself. She was almost
+too disappointed to sit down and rest in the cool, quiet shade. Cap
+sniffed the box but did not put a paw up to beg, and even the big noisy
+blue-jay scorned a few crumbs that lay on a fallen leaf.
+
+"Suppose he--murdered her!"
+
+It was not unusual for a girl like Nora to think the very worst first,
+in fact the normal, childish mind is very apt to leap at a sensation,
+but only the high spot is sensed, the detail is always conspicuously
+lacking.
+
+"Of course she is deadly sick. Oh, why didn't she let me know where she
+lived," Nora wailed secretly. "I could visit her and bring her all sorts
+of lovely things----"
+
+She lifted the paper napkin that covered the food offering.
+
+"What's this?" she exclaimed. A stiff little green leaf made of very
+shiny paper appeared, and with it, Nora found, was an old fashioned
+nose-gay, the sort beloved by the Italians and the Polish peasantry.
+Nora picked up the spray. It was tied with a green ribbon and somehow
+gave Nora a distinct shock.
+
+"Oh! She's dead, this is what they--have at funerals!"
+
+Tears welled up into the blue eyes, and hands holding the silent message
+trembled. Nora sat down and Cap nosed up to her; he knew something was
+the matter.
+
+Such a pathetic little bouquet! One stiff pink rose, one yellow daisy,
+two bright red carnations and three very stiff green leaves, all made of
+a sort of oil-cloth paper.
+
+A tear fell into the heart of the rose. If it were not really a flower
+it was at least a good picture of one, just as a photograph can so
+vividly remind one of the original.
+
+Nora went back to the box. "When can she have put it here?" she
+wondered. It was under the paper plate.
+
+Then she recalled that this last donation had been hastily deposited in
+the box, for it was late and Nora had to hurry back to get ready for her
+own tea at the time she placed it there.
+
+"I must have it put right on her flowers," she pondered. "Poor, abused,
+little Lucia!"
+
+Picking up the untouched food Nora discovered a slip of soiled paper
+beneath it. There was writing on it, a scrawl of some kind. She carried
+it to the light out from under the dense trees.
+
+"Yes, it's a note," murmured Nora, as if Cap, her only companion,
+understood. And it just says "'Goodbye, with love.'"
+
+Nora read and reread the scribble. It was written, she decided, in
+Lucia's hand, for it was such a crooked, uneven scrawl. The paper was a
+leaf torn from a book, and this assured Nora that at some time Lucia
+must have gone to school.
+
+"After all my joy, the party, the enrollment and everything, this has to
+come," thought the discouraged girl. "I hoped today I could induce her
+to come over and see Ted and Jerry."
+
+It was too disappointing. For the first few days Nora had felt it was
+safer to allow Lucia to have her way, and when she waited and waited,
+until the Italian girl appeared, then coaxed and urged that she come
+over to the cottage, Lucia showed signs of real fright. She would have
+run from the tree-tent and never returned, if Nora had not promised to
+agree to her secrecy. After that the benefactor brought the food but was
+never able to get more than a fleeting glimpse of Lucia, as she scurried
+off like a little black rabbit with her precious food and her strange
+secret. And now she was really gone and had said goodbye.
+
+"Why didn't I tell Alma?" sighed Nora, regretfully. "She might have
+known a better way to have helped her."
+
+Too late to reason thus, Nora with a heavy heart again covered the tin
+box, hoping something would bring Lucia back; then she took the quaint
+floral token and started for the Nest.
+
+Her plans to help Lucia had included everything from a change of home to
+a complete change of identity, for Nora felt the stranger must have been
+in sore need, and why couldn't she induce Cousin Ted to adopt such a
+pretty, forlorn child?
+
+It was characteristic of Nora to decide on the most dramatic course, for
+such a possibility as a mother, father, or family in the background of
+Lucia's life was not thought of.
+
+And was this to be the end of her precious secret? She squeezed the
+paper bouquet until the humble ribbon wrinkled into a sad bit of stuff,
+and then decided to put the token away with her most precious
+belongings. Maybe Lucia would come back, and if she ever did Nora
+decided positively she would then tell someone about the child, even
+tell Cousin Ted if need be, and, certainly, Alma.
+
+"And now I must go to my letter box," she told Cap, the faithful.
+
+Looking up and down, in and out, far and near, to make sure no one saw
+her, Nora followed the trail to the bent willow--the hiding place of
+Alma's correspondence with the fabled prince.
+
+She had been there, the moss was a shade lighter where feet had pressed
+the velvet nap, and the leaves of the bushes were still "inside out"
+from a hasty brushing made to clear a path to the bent willow.
+
+Under the stone, as directed, Alma had placed her answer to the prince's
+letter, and finding it there she quickly hid the envelope in her deepest
+blouse pocket. She would read it in more comfort, enjoy it more at home,
+with the door locked.
+
+"What an exciting vacation I am having, really!" she reflected. "When I
+came all I could think of was pretty things."
+
+Had she been that Nora once so filled with foolish fancies that life,
+brief as it had been to her, seemed too full of nonsense to admit of
+real joys with girl companions, and any number of adventures?
+
+"A real vacation indeed," concluded the girl in khaki, holding close
+Lucia's flowers and Alma's letter. She was sorely tempted to peek into
+the latter, but that would spoil the delicious secret reading, which to
+be complete would have to be made in solitude.
+
+It had been days since she went out "on location" with the
+cousins--Jerry always called surveying "doing location," as the moving
+picture folks termed their work, but so many other things claimed her
+attention it seemed difficult to get them all in. Cousin Ted was very
+busy herself, but had managed to write Nora's mother. A glowing account
+of the Scout interests was surely given in that letter, and Jerry was
+disappointed when Ted refused to ask permission for Nora to stay during
+the winter. To this, woman-like, Mrs. Jerry Manton had not agreed,
+because to go to school in the wilderness is always more picturesque
+than practical.
+
+But Nora had endeared herself to those generous hearts, and even the
+thought of that real mother with an unreal name did not thrill her as
+did the knowledge that she had "made good" with these devoted friends.
+
+Home now--that is to the Nest, Nora rushed up to her room to devour
+Alma's letter. She ignored Vita's appeal to come see the wonderful
+flowers sent from some one for Mrs. Manton. She must read the letter
+before going down to dinner.
+
+In the biggest chair by the open window beyond locked doors she unfolded
+the precious page.
+
+"She writes a pretty hand," was the first comment. Then she read:
+
+    "'Camp Chickadee.
+
+    "'My dear Prince:
+
+    "'How wonderful to get a letter from you! As you have
+    guessed I did think of you ever since. Please tell me who
+    you are and where you live? We Scouts would love to know you
+    and perhaps we can tell you some interesting things about
+    America, if, as I surmise, you are a visitor here.'"
+
+"Oh mercy," gasped Nora. "I have only made matters worse. She actually
+believes I am a prince. What ever shall I do?"
+
+The letter lay mute and yet accusing. Nora had written Alma a first
+letter to prepare her for the second. True, she did not explain--but she
+fancied somehow Alma would come to the tree, and then perhaps they would
+meet and settle the whole troublesome business.
+
+"But it's worse, heaps worse," sighed Nora. The call from down stairs
+was unanswered, for she must plan something else and that quickly.
+
+First she thought of writing another letter with a complete and full
+confession, but she dreaded it, shrank from it and finally abandoned the
+idea.
+
+"If it only were not Alma," she sighed. "I would almost enjoy the joke
+on some of the others, but Alma!"
+
+Nothing could be worse than this nagging at her conscience. She must
+conquer it. And here was the new trouble about Lucia!
+
+"I always thought secrets were such fun, and yet these are
+positively--tragic," she thought. "If only I could tell Alma about
+Lucia, at least that would be a comfort."
+
+Another call from Vita. Cousin Ted and Cousin Jerry were in now. The
+cheery whistle and the joyful "Whoo-hoo!" must be answered.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" sighed Nora. "I suppose things always happen that way."
+She gave Lucia's flowers an affectionate squeeze, dropped them into her
+ivory box, slipped Alma's letter under the cushion and went down to
+dinner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE WORST FRIGHT OF ALL
+
+
+It was growing dusk--the sunset seemed in a great hurry to get away, and
+day time was evidently going to the same party. The Mantons failed to
+induce Nora to accompany them on a "bug hunt," Jerry's term for Ted's
+moth expedition. Vita too seemed in haste to get somewhere, and
+altogether the evening was especially popular to make escapes in.
+
+Nora was going over to camp, she announced, and would be there long
+before dark. The girls would come home with her, she had assured the
+prudent Ted.
+
+So everything was settled and the Nest would be unoccupied, with Cap as
+guard, for that evening.
+
+Not a smile broke the serious look on Nora's face. It was evident the
+program for the evening included something very important.
+
+"Goodbye," called out Ted. "Be sure to go over to camp, right away, or
+the dark will--catch you."
+
+"Yes'm," echoed Jerry, "and Mr. Dark knows no distinctions at Wildwoods.
+He throws a big black blanket over the whole kaboodle."
+
+Nora replied, but even the joke did not cheer her. A few minutes later
+she stood at the foot of the attic stairs, drew a long breath; then
+dashed up.
+
+Over to the chest that contained the costumes long ignored, she
+literally dashed, yanked up the lid and dragged out the Lord Fauntleroy
+outfit.
+
+She counted the pieces, waist, jacket, knickers, sash--where was the
+cap?
+
+Nervously she fumbled over the tangle of garments, but did not find it.
+
+"I had better dress first," she decided, "and come up again for the cap.
+I am--so--nervous----"
+
+No need to make the confession, for even her hands, young and usually
+steady, actually dropped the velvet coat right on the dusty attic floor.
+
+No time for looking in the mirror. The knickers were kept up with round
+garters now, a Scout acquisition, and the thin white blouse that went
+under the jacket, went under very quickly--fullness and strings jabbed
+in wherever space allowed.
+
+In a remarkably short time she was inside the entire outfit. One glimpse
+in the glass assured her she was again garbed as the fickle prince. Then
+for the cap.
+
+"I have time to run and get it," she assured herself. "Of course, I must
+have that cap."
+
+Back to the attic, now a shade darker, and then again into the mysteries
+of the costume chest, she rummaged.
+
+"Oh, dear," she sighed. "I'll be--here it is! Thank goodness!" She just
+jabbed it on her head. A sound startled her. She stood still, every
+sense alert.
+
+"What was it?" she instinctively asked.
+
+Again. It--was--a low--moan!
+
+Pausing only long enough to make sure her nerves were not fooling her,
+Nora heard again, distinctly, a sound, a human or inhuman moan! Then she
+rushed down the stairs, kept on rushing until she reached the street
+door, and realizing no person was upon the premises, ran down the road,
+straight for Chickadee Camp.
+
+No thought of her appearance concerned her; she must get the girls to
+come back and find out what was in the attic!
+
+Only once she stopped, just to make sure the cap was not going to fall
+off her yellow head.
+
+Voices and laughter came to meet her. That was Thistle and Wyn----
+
+Gulping back a choking, nervous gasp, she rushed on. The next minute she
+dashed into Chickadee Camp and stood before an amazed group of Scouts.
+
+"The prince!" went up a shout.
+
+"My prince!" corrected Alma.
+
+"Why, it's Nora----"
+
+"Girls!" gasped the intruder. "Listen, please, I am no prince----"
+
+"You are indeed. Just look at the dandy outfit. Alma, we most humbly
+apologize----"
+
+"Wyn," shouted Thistle, "please listen! Can't you see there is something
+the matter?"
+
+"Oh, there is really, girls," panted Nora. "Come quick! There is
+someone--dying in our--attic!"
+
+"Dying?"
+
+"I was up there--getting these things, and I--heard the awfulest
+moans----"
+
+"Maybe it was Cap," suggested Treble. Her eyes had not wandered from the
+surprising spectacle.
+
+"Oh, no, he was outside," said Nora, "and no one is home, not even Vita.
+Oh, please do come! I know someone is in agony," and her voice trailed
+off into agony of her own.
+
+"I'll lead," volunteered Thistle. "Come along, every one. Alma, you can
+take care of your--prince," she could not resist injecting.
+
+"Oh Alma," sighed Nora. "I was planning to come to explain to you----"
+
+"You don't need to," and a most affectionate and all encompassing look
+went from Alma to Nora. "I know all--about it now, and you are my
+prince, just the same."
+
+"Come along, you two lovers," ordered Thistle the leader. "You had a
+'crush' on Nora from the first, Alma. Now we all know why. Fall in
+there, Betta. No need to wait for guns----"
+
+"I am not going without some weapon of defense," declared Betta. "Nora
+knows her own attic, and she knows when someone is moaning. It may be a
+lunatic. There is always an asylum in a pretty place like this."
+
+"Oh, is there?" cried Nora. "I would be afraid to face a--lunatic in
+that big, dark, attic----"
+
+"I should think you would, lunatic or just plain, human being," agreed
+Laddie. "You look delectable enough for anyone to just eat you up----"
+
+"Can't you girls realize this is an emergency, not a debate?" snapped
+Thistle. "We don't suppose Nora is dying of fright just for fun. Betta,
+run over and tell Becky."
+
+"Oh, don't let's have her along," interrupted Treble, bent on making the
+most of the adventure. "You know she would have to do something we
+wouldn't."
+
+"Right," agreed Wyn. "Come along Scouts! 'Jeuty' calls us."
+
+They had been "coming along" all the time. These expressions merely gave
+vent to pent up energy.
+
+Nora, although thoroughly frightened, was thankful that the dark helped
+hide her dismay. Alma had her arm, and Alma was thinking in terms of
+"prince," even the pretender was conscious of that.
+
+The girls giggled and talked, as they always did, and as Betta took time
+to remark, "they would be apt to do it at their own funerals." There was
+no suppressing Wyn, and Treble fell but a peg below in volubility.
+
+"Look out there!" called Thistle.
+
+Everyone halted.
+
+"What?" demanded Wyn.
+
+"A puddle," replied the heartless leader. "And I'm responsible for the
+shine on your shoes, lunatic or no lunatic," she declared loudly.
+
+"When my turn comes to lead for a week I'll have that wretched girl up
+every day at dawn," threatened Betta. "She has the cruelest way of
+raising one's hopes."
+
+"Had you hopes for the lunatic in the mud puddle?" demanded Laddie.
+
+"You had better get your sense valve working," suggested Doro. "We are
+almost there."
+
+"Right," added Treble. "I can see the gate light now."
+
+"How ever will we go up there in the dark?" Nora asked Alma. "I will be
+afraid to go into the house."
+
+"Don't you worry, dear," Alma was still under the influence. "We will
+all go in together, and Thistle isn't afraid of man or beast."
+
+Arrived at the Nest Nora was confronted with a light at the back of the
+house.
+
+"Someone home?" suggested Thistle.
+
+"There shouldn't be," declared Nora. "Everyone is out for the evening."
+
+"Where is Vita?" asked the same leader. They had stopped at the natural
+hedge, and now stood under the picturesque, homemade arc light--Jerry's
+lantern with the red globe.
+
+"Vita went out somewhere. She often does, and you see I was going over
+to camp, so there was, really, no one at home."
+
+"Your dying princess has come down stairs to die," suggested the
+irrepressible Wyn.
+
+"Princess?" scoffed Nora.
+
+"Or was it merely a maid in waiting--excuse me, your _man_ in waiting."
+
+"Wyn," shouted Laddie, "can't you see you are making yourself ridiculous
+at a time like this?"
+
+She probably couldn't for she went off into a gale of laughter and had
+to go behind a bush to enjoy it.
+
+"There is someone in the kitchen," declared Treble. "Here she comes!"
+
+She did; she came right out and greeted them.
+
+It was Vita!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+STRANGE DISCLOSURES
+
+
+For a moment no one spoke--they were all so surprised.
+
+"Hello!" called out Vita. "What's this? A party?" Her English was
+perfect.
+
+"No, it isn't Vita," Nora managed to answer. "I was almost scared to
+death----"
+
+"Let me tell her, Nora," interrupted Thistle, the leader.
+
+"I'm not going in that house with her until Cousin Ted comes home,"
+declared Nora. "Vita is always putting me off. She knows what that noise
+up in the attic is."
+
+"Have you heard it before?" asked Betta.
+
+"Yes, a number of times----"
+
+"Then, if the moaner did not die before, Nora, what makes you think the
+present attack would be fatal?" Wyn came out from the bush to inquire.
+
+"Land sakes, Wyn! Will you hush? Fun is all right in its place but this
+is serious," warned Pell.
+
+"Looks it," whispered the same Wyn, into Betta's unwilling ear.
+
+"Nonsense, standing here like a----"
+
+"Serenading party," finished Laddie. "Let's begin."
+
+"Serenading?" An uncertain and feeble whistle followed, but in the dark
+no one owned up to it.
+
+"You coming in? No?" asked and answered Vita.
+
+"No. We are not coming in," declared Nora, who had stepped up to the
+door at which the spacious Vita stood. "We heard a noise up in the attic
+and we were coming in to investigate, but we won't now."
+
+The girls were audibly disappointed. They said so outright.
+
+"Perhaps she doesn't know a thing about it," suggested Laddie. "Don't
+you think, Nora, we ought to go in and look around?"
+
+"No, I don't. She is in the plot, or secret or whatever it is," declared
+Nora aside. "When I first came here I heard it----"
+
+"Why didn't you tell us?" demanded Doro. The parade had come to a
+useless halt.
+
+"I don't know," murmured Nora. "You know I had queer ideas at first,"
+she faltered, unconsciously smoothing down the pretty little velvet
+knickers and slipping a nervous hand into an inadequate pocket.
+
+"We know, but we all have--at first," admitted Laddie. "I used to think
+I would love Thistle, and see what she has done to us with her old
+bossing." The challenge went unanswered.
+
+"Can't we go to the bench and talk it over?" suggested Betta, unwilling
+to leave the scene thus unsatisfied.
+
+"Oh, no, please don't," begged Nora. "I don't know just what I fear, but
+actually, girls," she did whisper this, "I am as much afraid of Vita now
+as I am of the thing up in the attic."
+
+"Your nice, fat, good natured Vita?" asked Pell in surprise. The person
+spoken of had gone indoors discreetly.
+
+"I don't mean that I am afraid of her all the time," Nora hastened to
+correct. "She is as good as gold, generally, and I am sure Vita is
+honorable. But it is that attic affair--she is in some way connected
+with that, and I am not going to take a chance of getting frightened
+again tonight. You have no idea how I felt, up there all alone, in fact
+I was all alone in the house when I heard that groan."
+
+"Groan?" Wyn could not resist. "I thought it was a moan?"
+
+But no one paid any attention to the remark. Betta suggested they agree
+with Nora and all go back to camp.
+
+"We can bring Nora back home about the time she expects her Cousin
+Jerry," Betta's suggestion included. "There is no sense in subjecting
+her to more terror with the Italian woman."
+
+"For once I agree with you, Betta," answered Thistle. "March back to the
+Chickadee, every Scout of you, and see that you don't wallow in that mud
+puddle."
+
+"But the prince?" inquired Wyn. "Is he to walk through ordinary mud
+puddles?"
+
+"No. Of course not. You and the other big girl, Treble by name, are to
+carry him. Avaunt!" ordered the leader.
+
+"Oh please----" protested Nora; but in vain. She was upon the shoulders
+of Wyn and Treble before she had a chance to finish her useless appeal.
+
+"Put your royal arms around me," chanted Treble.
+
+"If you don't you may be dumped," warned the other slave.
+
+"Listen!" ordered someone. "Here comes the whole camp! Are we out after
+hours?"
+
+"If we are we can plead emergency," explained Thistle. "How could we
+wait for permission when someone was moaning to death?"
+
+They took up the march in real earnest. As faithful Scouts they always
+kept to regulations and found pleasure in doing so. Only Nora's call of
+distress had lured them away as darkness was setting in.
+
+"Please let me walk," begged Nora. "I know you must get back as quickly
+as you can, and I am sure I have given you enough trouble."
+
+"We love to carry you," insisted Wyn. "Besides, we know it's our last
+chance. Alma will be unconscious in the throes of love from this on,"
+she finished with a lurch that brought the erstwhile prince to "his"
+feet in spite of their intentions.
+
+A few more accidents, minor and major, according to the way said
+accidents were accepted, and the squad arrived at Chickadee. Nora was
+now more embarrassed than ever. How could she again go in among all
+those sensibly-clad girls in that ridiculous costume? Besides, now she
+was bound to tell the whole miserable story.
+
+"Where have you girls been?" began Becky, who stood waiting. "Did you
+not know this was story night?"
+
+"We have been out scouting, and we did," replied Thistle in her most
+docile tone. "Becky, love, we have the bravest thrill of our entire
+career to unfold."
+
+"Begin, please, by explaining the infraction of hours," said Miss
+Beckwith, although her manner belied her demand, and the summer twilight
+lasted.
+
+"The thrill is none other than someone, anyone, dying of moans," said
+Wyn. "We have with us tonight----"
+
+At this she craned her neck over the tallest of them to locate little
+Nora. But she, the guest of honor, was hiding behind Treble.
+
+"When you hear the whole wonderful tale," promised Pell, "you will only
+be sorry you were not along. We have been out gunning for attic ghosts."
+After more talk of this variety Nora was dragged forth.
+
+How pretty she looked in the camp light! A glow from the fire that had
+been lighted for stories, surrounded the little prince, and, as the
+picturesque figure stood in the center of the group of admiring eyes,
+even the glory of the modern Scout uniform was threatened with eclipse.
+In the late twilight the effect was entrancing.
+
+"Isn't she darling?"
+
+"Just look at those--panties?"
+
+"Oh, don't you remember----"
+
+"Sweet Alice Ben Bolt."
+
+"No, not Alice, but the night we fought over those bloomers," recalled
+Treble.
+
+"They're not bloomers. They're rompers."
+
+Then began that whole foolish debate which ended up by Thistle declaring
+they might be overalls for all it mattered, if only the girls would let
+Nora tell her story. Pell and Treble agreed. The introduction was
+briefly outlined for Becky's benefit, then Nora was allowed to tell it
+as it appeared to her--that is, she was allowed to begin to tell it that
+way, but what with the interruptions, the suggestions, the questions,
+and the qualifying clauses, it was small wonder the willing culprit made
+poor headway.
+
+As the story took the shape of a confession Nora seemed to be the
+culprit, but judging from the approval voiced by the multitude they all
+had little regard for _her_ brand of "crime." In other words, Nora only
+imagined she had offended, the entire detail made a most interesting
+story as it was told around the campfire blaze of Chickadee Patrol.
+
+She admitted frankly that her early notions were anything but practical,
+she bravely recounted her weakness for fancy things, including ivory
+bureau sets and pink ribbons, to which more than one Chickadee added her
+own little admission, in fact, Pell said she always did and always would
+love pink; brown khaki and smoked pearl buttons to the contrary
+notwithstanding.
+
+The telling of her attempt at attic tenancy brought forth peal after
+peal of laughter, in which Nora joined. Then she told all about her
+disguise as the fabled and famous prince.
+
+"I think it is all too jolly for words," insisted Laddie, "and what do
+you say, girls, to our adopting Prince Adorable for our mascot?"
+
+This precipitated more trouble. Nora was put on the table, that long box
+used when weather was pleasant and drenched when weather was wet, and
+from that grandstand, or throne, she was called upon to make silly
+speeches, prompted by Wyn and interrupted by Betta.
+
+Alma objected. She insisted Nora had hinted to her something she ought
+to tell the others. And she further maintained it was a matter serious
+enough to put a stop to all nonsense, and "if the girls aren't willing
+to listen quietly, I shall take Nora over to the other tent, where she
+can tell Becky in peace," threatened Alma.
+
+This put a soft pedal on all unnecessary sounds: even Wyn desisted.
+
+"Tell us, Nora, please do tell," begged Wyn. "We have had fun enough to
+give our poor jaws a rest. Mine are aching from laughing."
+
+So Nora began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE DANGER SQUAD IN ACTION
+
+
+It was a fascinating tale. Every detail told by Nora took on new value
+as it was silently applauded by her eager audience. Thus encouraged she
+waxed eloquent, and when she finished all about the wearing of the
+Fauntleroy costume, then her desire to tell Alma the truth, when she
+knew the Scouts were teasing the Tenderfoot, the recital might well have
+been called a credit, even to the girl who felt guilty of its secrets.
+
+"You see," she said naively, "I was always so much alone. I had no
+companion but Barbara, and she agreed with everything I said."
+
+"What a change this must be!" murmured Wyn.
+
+"Hush!" warned Betta. "Funny as you are, Wynnie, you _can_ be rude."
+
+"And now, girls," said Nora in a brand new tone of voice, "as I have
+told you all of that, I feel anxious to tell you something else. I have
+another secret and I think it is much more serious than anything else
+that has happened on this wonderful vacation."
+
+"Out with it," begged some one, but Nora did not hear the thoughtless
+phrase.
+
+Miss Beckwith sat with the girls, encouraging their confidences, and the
+usual safety in numbers was surely a clue to the satisfaction of the
+novel meeting. Secrets were best shared by the multitude, then what one
+was not wise enough to know, some one would surely be clever enough to
+guess--so far as solution of the problem went.
+
+"One day when I was wandering around--it was the day we had such a
+wonderful time----" Nora started.
+
+"When you learned to swim?" prompted Wynnie.
+
+"I think it was. Well, I just walked along a lane I had never found
+before," continued the prince--for she was still that noble character,
+"and under a cave of pines--they grew so thick I could hardly see there,
+it was almost as dark as night; and right there, in a bed of leaves I
+saw something move."
+
+Just who was it that choked back Wyn's interruption does not matter, but
+presently Nora continued:
+
+"At first, of course, I thought it was a dog or something like that, but
+all of a sudden it sat up!"
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the sympathetic Alma.
+
+"Yes, it sat up and looked at me with eyes like coals of fire."
+
+"Nora!" shouted Laddie. "I am all goose flesh, please tell us who had
+the eyes."
+
+"I'm trying to," said Nora, realizing the value of pauses. "I was so
+frightened I wanted to run, but before I could do so the creature showed
+how frightened she was----"
+
+"She!" This was Betta.
+
+"Yes, it was a poor, miserable little girl, all rags and eyes, and so
+sad looking! Really girls, my heart went out to her," declared the story
+teller in her most Nora-esque manner.
+
+Titters barely tinctured the atmosphere. Miss Beckwith begged the girls
+to listen politely.
+
+"I managed to get her to tell me her name," said Nora next. "And it was
+Lucia."
+
+"Lucia," repeated a chorus in perfect time, pronouncing it "Luchia."
+
+"Yes, a poor, neglected, little Italian girl, who has to work on one of
+the big farms----"
+
+"There!" almost shouted Alma. "I knew when you saved your picnic lunch
+it was for something noble. It was for Lucia, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, but after bringing her food for days she suddenly disappeared."
+
+"What happened to her?" asked Pell.
+
+"How can I tell?" sighed Nora. "I have done everything to find out. I
+have even had Cousin Ted drive me around the big farms hoping to get a
+glimpse of her, but I never saw any one who even looked like her. Then,
+I haven't told you the most pathetic part," she paused again. "The last
+day I went to fetch her a lovely piece of pie, you know I used to put
+food in a big tin box Vita gave me; well, there was all that I had left
+the day before. Of course, I was awfully disappointed and I felt
+so--sorry I had not told you girls----"
+
+"If you had, Nora," said Miss Beckwith, gently, "we might have found a
+way to help the child."
+
+"I know that, Becky, and I am telling this now partly to----"
+
+"Ease your conscience," prompted Pell.
+
+"Yes; I don't want any more secrets. They are more worry than they can
+possibly be worth," said Nora tritely.
+
+"You were telling us about the box," prompted Alma.
+
+"Oh, yes; but I must hurry, I have to go home very soon. It is time the
+folks were back."
+
+"Tell us the rest and we won't interrupt once," promised Wyn in a
+contrite tone, and she seemed to mean it.
+
+"I found a little paper bouquet in the box," Nora continued. "And a
+scribbled bit of paper."
+
+"What was on it?" Betta could not help asking.
+
+"Just a few words, 'Goodbye, I love you.'" Nora stopped suddenly.
+
+"The poor, little thing," commiserated Alma. "And could you find no way
+to tell who she was or where she lived?"
+
+"I didn't dare ask anyone outright," answered Nora, "because you see, I
+had promised not to tell anyone about meeting her. She was in terror of
+a man she called Nick."
+
+"Nick?" repeated a number.
+
+"Yes; she would only say he was a bad man, and I know she feared him for
+she would tremble so when she mentioned his name."
+
+Miss Beckwith had remained in the background. If she knew a way to solve
+the mystery, evidently she did not think the time had come to disclose
+it.
+
+"But when I found she was gone--I knew what a mistake I had made in not
+telling anyone about it. Even if she was afraid, I could surely have
+trusted--Alma," sighed Nora.
+
+In the semi-darkness none could see the look of affection Alma threw
+out. Her sensitive soul had found solace in the companionship of the
+almost equally sensitive Nora.
+
+"I must go," insisted Nora. "The folks will be home and I am going to
+tell them about that attic noise tonight, Vita or no Vita."
+
+"You are perfectly right in that," said Miss Beckwith. "Come along,
+girls, we will all see Nora home this time."
+
+They wanted to carry her back, but costumed and all that she was, Nora
+felt little like partaking in their frolic. She feared something. That
+moaning was human, of this she was certain; and it was equally certain
+that Vita was in too good health when she appeared at the door, to have
+been in any way implicated, physically.
+
+"If your folks have not returned will you come back and stay all night?"
+suggested Betta. "We could leave a message for them and you know you
+have not stayed a single night at camp yet."
+
+"I am sure they are at home, I see the light in the living room,"
+responded Nora. "But thank you, just the same, Betta. I shall love to
+stay a night soon, I have been counting on having that treat before this
+vacation is over."
+
+They had rounded the curve and the Nest was now in full view. Presently
+they were at the door and Nora touched the knocker.
+
+There was no immediate response and she wondered. "I can see inside, the
+curtain is up, and I don't see a soul," she declared.
+
+"Nor hear a sound," added Pell who was listening at the keyhole.
+
+Here was another cause for wonderment. Nora rapped the knocker until the
+sound seemed doubly loud, reverberating in the dusk.
+
+But there was no answer. "What can it mean?" asked Nora anxiously. "I am
+sure some one lighted the lights, can they have gone out looking for
+me?"
+
+"Can't you get in?" asked Miss Beckwith.
+
+"Yes. I know where to find the emergency key. But I don't think I'll go
+in." Nora seemed doomed to spend the night at camp after all.
+
+The girls crowded around. Plainly any excitement was a welcome diversion
+for them.
+
+"Maybe the groaner lighted up," suggested Wyn, facetiously. "She seems
+to like traveling."
+
+"You are so brave, Wynnie," said Miss Beckwith, "I wonder would you be
+brave enough to go in and investigate?"
+
+"Certainly," came the quick rejoinder. "I'd like nothing better.
+Volunteers?" she called out.
+
+"Hush!" begged Nora. "It may be that Vita is upstairs and has not heard
+us, although she must have heard that knock."
+
+Again she rapped the knocker.
+
+"Hark!" said Betta. "I honestly thought I heard a cry."
+
+Everyone was now breathless.
+
+"I do hear some one crying," declared Alma. "Whoever can it be?"
+
+"That up-attic person, I'm sure," said Wyn. "Better get the key, Nora.
+We can't let them cry to death while we are all here, listening in."
+
+"I think I heard crying," said Miss Beckwith. "Perhaps you had better
+open the door, Nora."
+
+From under the fern dish Nora procured the key.
+
+Miss Beckwith took it, and presently the door was open. The hall was
+flooded with light, but everyone instinctively stepped back.
+
+There was no sound.
+
+"Where's Cap?" asked Nora. "We left him here."
+
+"There is really nothing to fear," said Miss Beckwith. "Here we are, a
+half dozen of us. I think we had better go inside. Maybe poor old Cap is
+locked in somewhere and held captive."
+
+"Oh, that's so," replied Nora. "He has a habit of getting in closets and
+he might have sprung the door shut. Sometimes he moans----"
+
+That was enough to excite practical sympathy, and everyone promptly
+stepped inside. Once within, it did not seem so fearful. Pell prowled
+around and Wyn made foolish noises; but Nora hung back.
+
+After satisfying themselves there was nothing wrong on the first floor
+they decided to investigate the second.
+
+"I can always hear it right over my room," said Nora when the band of
+Chickadees inundated that territory. "There! Did you hear that?"
+
+"Yes, someone is crying upstairs," declared Miss Beckwith, "and we must
+see who it is."
+
+"But suppose----"
+
+"Here's Cap. He would not let anyone touch us," declared Nora. "But
+Becky----"
+
+"Come along, girls, that is not the voice of a man or woman. Come, we
+must do something. It sounds like----"
+
+Bouncing up on Nora, Cap whined. "There, he knows, he wants me to go up.
+What is it, Cap?" Nora asked again, and again the dog whined piteously.
+
+Now, everyone was willing to lead, yet they formed quite an orderly
+drill.
+
+This was an emergency and emergency always means order for Scouts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+RAIDING THE ATTIC
+
+
+No one could tell just how they got there, but realizing that some one
+was suffering they had all followed Cap to the attic, and there waited
+again for the sound that was to lead them to the victim.
+
+"There's a cabinet over there," Nora whispered. "A person might hide in
+that."
+
+She was holding on to Alma and looked odd, indeed, still dressed in that
+gorgeous velvet costume.
+
+"Here's another light--this will show us the far end there," said Miss
+Beckwith, snapping on the extra bulb.
+
+"There it is!" gasped Pell. "Oh, it is somewhere--yes, come over here,"
+she cried. "Surely that's a child!"
+
+The faint cry, that was almost like a sob, sounded again. It must be
+over under the low beams.
+
+Nora forgot her terror now, for she knew the secret place of the long,
+rumbling attic, and no sooner had she heard the distinct cry than she
+brushed past all the others, dragged up a big dust curtain, then
+stopped.
+
+"Here! Here!" she called frantically. "It's a little girl. Bring the
+candle!"
+
+Thistle was beside her with the extra light. "Oh, mercy!" gasped Nora.
+"It's Lucia."
+
+"Lucia," repeated the others.
+
+"Yes, my own little darling Lucia. Oh, child," she cried out, "what has
+happened to you? How ever did you get here?"
+
+"Go away. Please, go away. I can't tell you. Oh, where is Vita? Vita
+come!" begged a voice, while Nora tried in vain to soothe her.
+
+"Let me there!" ordered Miss Beckwith. "The poor little thing!" she
+continued. "She evidently has had a fit of hysteria. Just see her gasp!
+Keep quiet, dear," she said gently. "You are all right now. We will take
+care of you. There! Stop sobbing. Don't you know the girls?"
+
+"She knows me, don't you, Lucia?" asked Nora, anxiously. "Oh, I am so
+glad we found her. She might have died."
+
+"Don't let us waste time in talking. Here girls. Use your first aid,
+now. We must carry her down stairs to the air," ordered Miss Beckwith.
+
+They carried her down carefully and laid her on a couch by the window.
+
+"Where is this?" the girl murmured. Then she looked into Nora's face and
+something of the terror left her own. "Angel," she said simply, blinking
+uncertainly.
+
+"You know this little girl, don't you, Lucia?" pressed Becky now,
+anxious to arouse her.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+Nora cast a look of appeal at the director. She wanted to speak to the
+sick girl. Becky motioned she might do so.
+
+"Lucia," began Nora, very gently, "where did--you--come from?"
+
+"I run away from--Nick," she gasped, and again that look of terror
+flashed across the little pinched face.
+
+"Don't be frightened; you are here with me, Nora, now," said the girl in
+the velvet suit. "No one can touch you here."
+
+"Where--is--Vita? She not come back, bring doctor?"
+
+That was it. Vita had gone for a doctor.
+
+"She'll be here soon," soothed Miss Beckwith. The Scouts stood spell
+bound. How wonderful to have found the poor little waif right in Nora's
+own attic!
+
+There was a sound below. Vita came stamping up the stairs.
+
+"What is it?" she panted. Then seeing the crowd. "You come--save my poor
+little Lucia!"
+
+"Yes, Vita, we are here," replied Nora, sensing now the part that Vita
+had been playing. "We brought her down."
+
+"Poor Lucia. Vita's baby--Vita's bambino," crooned the woman, as she
+leaned over the couch and chaffed the trembling hands.
+
+It was a pathetic picture. The brilliantly-lighted room was like a stage
+with this strange drama being enacted upon it. The row of Scouts were
+unconsciously standing like a patrol at attention, while Nora in
+Fauntleroy dress, stood at Lucia's head; and the woman in the quaint
+peasant attire bent over; and then, there on the soft, bright couch, lay
+the inert figure with the great eyes staring out from under the bandage,
+evidently put on the hot forehead by Vita.
+
+No questions asked, every one could see the child was kin to Vita, but
+not her own child, perhaps her granddaughter.
+
+"She will be all right now, I think, Vita," said Miss Beckwith. "She
+just had a spell of hysteria, didn't she?"
+
+"Oh, she have a fit very bad," whispered the woman. "I run for doctor,
+quick, but he is no place----" her voice droned off into a low sound of
+foreign words, lamentation and wailings.
+
+"Why was she shut up there?" asked Nora.
+
+"She beg for dark--she never go in light when fit comes," Vita managed
+to make them understand. "I always hide her--she runs from Nick like
+anything. But he no hurt her, never. Just one time he scare her. She
+always cry so much he t'ink she might get better, and he scare her.
+Lucia run away and come to Vita, every time."
+
+"He didn't really hurt her," Miss Beckwith was both asking Vita and
+explaining to the girls. "Hysterical children must have a dread of
+something, and I suppose she seized on that."
+
+Lucia now sat up and looked about her. All the fear had left her, and
+her black eyes shone with relief.
+
+"She's all right now, aren't you, Lucia?" Thistle ventured to ask. The
+other girls were still spellbound.
+
+"Lovely," replied the child, actually rubbing her brown hand on the soft
+couch cover almost as if she were saying, "Nice! Nice!"
+
+"There come Cousin Jerry and Cousin Ted!" exclaimed Nora. "I'll bring
+them right up."
+
+"What Mrs. Jerry say?" asked Vita, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, that will be all right, Vita," said Nora, running along. "She'll
+understand everything."
+
+It is marvelous what sympathy can explain. No need for words to fill out
+the gaps.
+
+"Well, what a reception!" exclaimed the surprised Ted. "I never expected
+such a party as this." Her eyes fell upon Lucia. "A refugee?" she asked
+kindly.
+
+"Vita's little girl, Cousin Ted," said Nora, promptly. "We found
+her--sick." She did not say where.
+
+"She is in good hands now, I am sure," said Mrs. Manton, glancing around
+at the patrol. "We were detained with our fractious car--should have
+been home ages ago. Did you need anything? Have you had a doctor?"
+
+"She seemed merely hysterical," explained Becky. "I don't think she
+needs a doctor tonight. She will probably sleep well after the
+excitement--and exhaustion," she added in an undertone.
+
+"Well, of all things," exclaimed Mrs. Manton, suddenly getting a good
+look at Nora. "Have you been having a masquerade?"
+
+"A little Scout party," Miss Beckwith replied, to save Nora
+embarrassment. "This has been an eventful evening."
+
+"Must have been," agreed the hostess. "Shall we all go down and leave
+the child to rest?" she proposed.
+
+"_We_ must go," assured the leader. "It is not ten o'clock, I hope?"
+
+"No, and we'll run you over in our car--if the car will run. Mr. Manton
+is out tinkering with it. That's how he missed the excitement," Ted
+explained.
+
+Nora hung back with Lucia. She felt she had found her after so much
+anxiety, she was almost afraid the child would be spirited away if she
+should lose sight of her now.
+
+"How nice!" said Vita, and the relief in her own voice proved that the
+big woman had been suffering no little anxiety, herself.
+
+"I go home now, Vita," said Lucia, humbly. "I'm sorry, Vita."
+
+"Oh, you don't have to go home, Lucia," Nora hurried to interrupt. "You
+can stay right here. You don't want to go hide in the dark any more, do
+you Lucia?"
+
+"But I don't want to make the trouble."
+
+"She is so good when the fit is gone," said Vita, affectionately. "Poor
+Lucia, she can no help it."
+
+"Of course, she can't. I'll tell you, Vita, we'll ask Cousin Ted and I'm
+sure she'll let us fix Lucia up in that nice attic bed. Would you like
+that, Lucia?" enthused Nora.
+
+"She love the attic," said Vita. "She come every time, and I must hide
+her. But I no like to make the bother----"
+
+"And that was why you kept it secret!" said Nora. "Well, Vita, I did
+think you were--mean," she paused to soften the word, "but now I know
+why. And I am so glad to find Lucia again. You see, I knew her before."
+
+"You bring her the cakes----"
+
+"And you knew that, too?" Nora's secrets were fast evaporating. "Well,
+at any rate, Vita, you gave me a nice tin box and all the good things
+you could make, so I won't blame you. I'll run along and ask Cousin Ted
+about the attic. Dear me! What a blessing the girls came over with me!
+We might have been going on this way--for weeks and not have found out,"
+she added. "But the girls have to hurry off; it is getting time to
+answer the night roll call. I'll be back in a minute, Vita," she was
+talking fast. "Don't let Lucia move until I tell you," she warned.
+
+"All right, little Nora," replied Vita fondly. "I have two little girls,
+now; yes, Lucia?"
+
+"The girls have to leave without hearing this whole wonderful story,
+Nora," said Ted, as they crowded out to the car, "but I have asked them
+to come over tomorrow. They will die of curiosity in the meantime if
+Miss Beckwith does not keep them too busy to get into such mischief,"
+added the young woman jocularly.
+
+"Oh, Nora!" called out Wyn, "you come right over about daylight, will
+you? We'll leave a tent flap loose and you can crawl in. I would have
+nervous prostration if I had to wait until after inspection to hear the
+sequel. Good night!"
+
+"Good night! Good night! everybody!" went up the customary shout, and
+when the reliable little car, so recently called fractious by its owner,
+rumbled out into the roadway, the Scouts were actually singing their
+camp song.
+
+How wonderful to be girls! And how wonderful to be Girl Scouts!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FULFILLMENT
+
+
+"Of course, she'll come over. Didn't I say I'd leave a flap up?" asked
+Wyn. It was so early that the very Chickadees, after whom the patrol had
+been named, were still asleep in their own tree-top scout tents.
+
+"As if she could get out of bed----"
+
+"Why couldn't she? After last night I wonder if she will ever feel safe
+in bed again. Seems to me," said the incorrigible Wynnie, "she could do
+lots more good sitting up--raiding attics and things like that."
+
+"But Chicks," said Thistle from a rumpled pillow, "isn't that child a
+dream?"
+
+"You mean didn't that child dream----"
+
+"No, I do not. I think she is the most adorable thing. Why, she looks
+exactly like a painting we have----"
+
+"There--there," soothed Treble.
+
+"Don't get homesick," Pell called out. "We have a few more days to go
+before time to break camp and you want to be in at the big party, don't
+you?"
+
+"I think the prince part simply the most marvelous story I have ever
+heard," said Treble, under her breath. It was too early to join in a
+general wake-up.
+
+"Leave it to Alma," whispered Laddie. "I always said these quiet little
+girls have the most fun. I heard Wyn groaning in her sleep after every
+one else was aslumber. That's the kind of fun _she_ has."
+
+"Looks as if Nora had not walked in _her_ sleep, at any rate," put in
+Betta. "I move we get up and slick things up early. How do we know but
+the myth flew away in the night?"
+
+"We don't, but she didn't," replied Treble crisply. "But hark to a
+familiar sound. It calls arise----"
+
+Then began the duties, and in spite of their anxiety to get over to the
+Nest, the Scouts did succeed in performing their tasks with the usual
+accuracy and unusual alacrity.
+
+At nine o'clock they were free.
+
+No need to ask what anyone was going to do that morning. Every Girl
+Scout who had been in "the raid" was ready to run before the day's
+orders had been read from the bulletin.
+
+They headed for the Mantons' cottage.
+
+"Did you ever?"
+
+"No, I never!"
+
+This was a part of the meaningless contribution in words offered as the
+girls came up to the Nest. They had seen the tableau on the front porch.
+
+"Hello!" called out Nora.
+
+"'Lo, yourself," sang back Thistle.
+
+"Too early for a fashionable call?" asked Treble.
+
+"Come along, girls," Mrs. Manton welcomed them. "I am sure Nora has been
+anxiously waiting for you. I'll let her tell you the news," she
+finished, indicating the chairs for the party.
+
+Lucia was in a big steamer chair. It almost swallowed up the tiny
+figure, but she had a way of reclining, quite gracefully.
+
+"How are you today, Lucia?" asked Alma.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," replied the child, pinking through her dark skin.
+She looked very pretty in one of Nora's bright rose dresses, with the
+same color hair ribbon, and her feet encased in a pair of white
+slippers. No wonder she was "all right."
+
+"She's going to stay," said Nora proudly. "We've adopted her."
+
+"Quick work," remarked Laddie. "But I don't blame you. She looks as if
+she grew right here in this lovely big wild wood. Don't you like it,
+Lucia?"
+
+"Lots, much," said the child.
+
+"We found out all about it, of course," continued Nora. "Lucia won't
+mind if I tell you?" she questioned.
+
+"No," said the stranger. The single word indicated her timidity.
+
+"You see, she is the daughter of Vita's daughter who died last year,"
+Nora explained. "She has been living with cousins, and the man Nick, of
+whom she was so frightened, is the cousin's husband."
+
+Lucia now seemed to shrink back, and at that sign Nora signaled the
+girls to leave the porch and adjourn to more convenient quarters for
+their confidences.
+
+Once away from the restriction, words flew back and forth in questions
+and answers, until Wyn wanted to know if it was all a duet between Alma
+and Nora, or could they make it a chorus?
+
+"And he didn't beat her?" demanded Pell.
+
+"And she is really related to Vita, not kidnapped?" asked Betta.
+
+"You didn't find her all bruised up----"
+
+"Now girls," scoffed Nora. "I know perfectly well you don't think
+anything of the kind. You all know Vita was always kind and
+generous----"
+
+"Whew!" whistled Wyn. "How we can change! I thought she was a regular
+bear this time yesterday morning."
+
+"I think your cousins are perfectly splendid," said Betta, sensibly. "Is
+she really going to adopt the child?"
+
+"We had a doctor this morning," said Nora with an important air, "and he
+advised change of scene----"
+
+"Let's take her over to Chickadee!" interrupted Thistle. "That would be
+a distinct and decided change."
+
+"Oh, hush," begged Alma. "What else did the doctor say, Nora?"
+
+"She is hysterical--all came from the fright of her mother's sudden
+death," continued Nora. "But girls, I don't know how much to thank you,"
+she broke off. "Being a Scout has done much for me."
+
+"We believe you," said Wyn in her usual bantering way. "But say, little
+girl, are you going back to that school where they teach you to wear
+silk underwear in the cold, blasty winter weather? Couldn't you make out
+to get adopted at the Nest yourself?"
+
+A laugh, then a set of laughs, followed this.
+
+"You are coming over to camp tonight, remember," said Alma, seriously.
+"We have not initiated you yet, you know."
+
+"How about that first formal ducking, with Jimbsy in the background?"
+Pell reminded them. "That seemed all right for an initiation."
+
+Mrs. Manton was coming down the path with the inevitable letter. Was
+there ever a story finished without "a letter"? Mr. Jerry followed up.
+
+It was, as you have guessed, from Nora's mother, and she did grant
+permission for her to stay.
+
+"So," said Mrs. Teddy Manton, otherwise Theodora, while the real Jerry
+looked over her shoulder at the letter, and Cap sniffed approvingly at
+Nora's khaki skirt, "we expect to have Nora go to school in town this
+winter, and perhaps next summer we will all be back again at Rocky
+Ledge."
+
+"This was a real vacation," sighed Nora, "the best I ever had."
+
+"Three cheers!" yelled the Scouts; and Lucia from her porch was truly
+sorry she had ever called those girls "crazy."
+
+It was all so comfortable and safe now. Even her "bad fit" was gone with
+the winds, and how lovely to be out in the sunlight and have nothing to
+fear!
+
+Again came a riotous shout from the girls on and off the bench.
+
+"Chick! Chick! Chick-a-dees!" they yelled. And it must have been Wyn who
+echoed:
+
+"Cut! Cut! ka-dah! cut!"
+
+Girl Scouts are many and their adventures equally numerous, from
+mountain to valley, over hill and dale, and their further activities
+will be told of in the next volume of this series, which will be
+entitled: The Girl Scouts at Spindlewood Knoll.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES
+
+By LILIAN GARIS
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors
+
+Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid
+
+The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated by the foremost
+organizations of America form the background for these stories and while
+unobtrusive there is a message in every volume.
+
+1. THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS, _or Winning the First B. C._
+
+A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania town. Two runaway
+girls, who want to see the city, are reclaimed through troop influence.
+The story is correct in scout detail.
+
+2. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE, _or Maid Mary's Awakening_
+
+The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in other
+girls' activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. How she
+was discovered by the Bellaire Troop and came into her own as "Maid
+Mary" makes a fascinating story.
+
+3. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST, _or The Wig Wag Rescue_
+
+Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious
+seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping
+all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come.
+
+4. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG, _or Peg of Tamarack Hills_
+
+The girls of Bobolink Troop spend their summer on the shores of Lake
+Hocomo. Their discovery of Peg, the mysterious rider, and the clearing
+up of her remarkable adventures afford a vigorous plot.
+
+5. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE, _or Nora's Real Vacation_
+
+Nora Blair is the pampered daughter of a frivolous mother. Her dislike
+for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to
+appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, becomes
+a problem for the girls to solve.
+
+Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
+
+
+THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
+
+By ALICE B. EMERSON
+
+12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid
+
+Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her
+adventures and travels will hold the interest of every reader.
+
+    RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
+    _or Jasper Parloe's Secret_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
+    _or Solving the Campus Mystery_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
+    _or Lost in the Backwoods_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE
+    POINT _or Nita, the Girl Castaway_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
+    _or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
+    _or The Old Hunter's Treasure Box_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
+    _or What Became of the Raby Orphans_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
+    _or The Missing Pearl Necklace_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
+    _or Helping the Dormitory Fund_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
+    _or Great Days in the Land of Cotton_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
+    _or The Missing Examination Papers_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
+    _or College Girls in the Land of Gold_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
+    _or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
+    _or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
+    _or A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST
+    _or The Hermit of Beach Plum Point_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST
+    _or The Indian Girl Star of the Movies_
+
+    RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
+    _or The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands_
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge, by Lilian Garis
+
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