FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
that self is forgotten.'" Bessie Carroll drew a long breath as she looked about, and said earnestly, "Miss Laura, I never, never saw any place so dear! I didn't think there could be such a pretty room." Laura bent and kissed the earnest little face. "I am glad you like it so much, dear," she said. "I like it too. You remember the very first words of our Camp Fire law--'Seek beauty'? I thought of that when I was furnishing this. It is our Camp Fire room, girls, and I hope we shall have many happy times together here." "I guess they couldn't help being happy times in a room like this--and with you," returned Bessie with her shy smile, which remark was promptly approved by the other girls--except Olga, who said nothing. "You look as glum as that old barn owl at the camp, Olga," Louise Johnson told her under cover of the gay clamour of talk that followed. "For heaven's sake, do cheer up a bit. That face of yours is enough to curdle the milk of human kindness." Olga's only response was a black scowl and a savage glance, at which Louise retreated with a shrug of her shoulders and an exasperating wink and giggle. Within half an hour all the girls were there except Elizabeth. Olga, glooming in a corner, thought of Elizabeth crawling off alone to her room to cry. Torture would not have wrung tears from Olga's great black eyes, and she would have seen them unmoved in the eyes of any other girl; but Elizabeth--that was another thing. She glanced scornfully at the others laughing and chattering around Miss Laura, and vowed that she would never come to another of the meetings unless Elizabeth could come too. If Miss Laura, after all her talk, couldn't do something to help Elizabeth----But Miss Laura was standing before her now with a box of matches in her hand. "I want you to light our fire to-night, Olga," she said gently. Ungraciously enough, Olga touched a match to the splinters of resinous pine on the hearth, and as the fire flashed into brightness, Miss Laura, turning out the electric lights, said, "I love the fire, but I love the candles almost as much; so at our meetings here, we will have both." The girls were standing now in a circle broken only by the fire. Miss Laura set the three candlesticks with the bayberry candles on the floor in the centre of the circle and motioned the girls to sit down. Lightly they dropped to the floor, and Laura, touching a splinter to the fire, handed it to Frances Chapin, a grav
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Elizabeth

 

couldn

 
standing
 

Louise

 

meetings

 
candles
 

circle

 
Bessie
 
thought
 

Lightly


dropped
 

unmoved

 

scornfully

 

laughing

 

turning

 

chattering

 

motioned

 

glanced

 

splinter

 
Torture

Chapin
 

crawling

 

Frances

 
handed
 
touching
 

centre

 

gently

 
electric
 

broken

 

hearth


Ungraciously
 

lights

 

splinters

 
corner
 

touched

 

resinous

 

flashed

 

brightness

 

matches

 
bayberry

candlesticks

 
beauty
 

remember

 
furnishing
 
returned
 

breath

 
looked
 

earnestly

 

forgotten

 
Carroll