"First time I ever saw Olga Priest dumfounded," laughed Louise. "But,
say, girls--that Poor Thing is a duck after all--she is really."

Bessie's plump hand covered Louise's lips. "Hush, hush!" she cried in a
tone of real distress, for she loved Elizabeth. "That name is burnt up."

"So it is--beg everybody's pardon," yawned Louise. "But Elizabeth
couldn't hear way over there with Olga and Miss Laura. I say, girls,"
she added with her usual giggle, "I feel as if I'd been wound up to
concert pitch and I've got to let down somehow. Get out your fiddle,
Rose, and play us a jig. I've got to get some of this seriousness out of
my system before I go to bed."

Rose ran for her violin, and two minutes later the girls were dancing
gaily in the moonlight.

"I wish they hadn't," Laura whispered to Anne. "I wanted to keep the
impression of that lovely soft chanting for the last."

"You can't do it--not with Louise Johnson around," returned Anne. "But
never mind, Laura, they won't forget this meeting, even if they do have
to 'react' a bit. I'm sure that even Louise will keep the memory of this
last Council tucked away in some corner of her harum-scarum mind."

VIII

ELIZABETH AT HOME

In a tiny hall bedroom in one of the small brick houses that cover many
blocks in certain sections of Washington, Elizabeth Page was standing a
week later, trying to screw up her courage to a deed of daring; and
because it was for herself it seemed almost impossible for her to do it.
With her white face, her anxious eyes, and trembling hands, she seemed
again the Poor Thing who had shrunk from every one those first days at
the camp--every one but Olga.

Three times Elizabeth started to go downstairs and three times her
courage failed and she drew back. So long as she waited there was a
chance--a very faint one, but still a chance--that the thing she so
desired might come true. But the minutes were slipping away, and
finally, setting her lips desperately, she fairly ran down the stairs.

Her stepmother glanced up with a frown as the girl stood before her.

"Well, what now?" she demanded, in the sharp, fretful tone of one whose
nerves are all a-jangle.

"I've done everything--all the supper work, and fixed everything in the
kitchen ready for morning," Elizabeth said, her words tumbling over each
other in her excitement, "and O, please may I go this evening--to Miss
Laura's? It's the Camp Fire meeting, and one of the girls is going to