e teased.
"Truly I am glad that your father and mother have made you undertake the
study of medicine instead of going on with nursing. For my part I shall
always prefer you as a physician to Dr. Ashton, even though he has a
good many years' start of you."

Never could Sylvia take things humorously. "Then you will show very poor
judgment, Nan Graham. Richard Ashton is going to be a perfect wonder.
Betty and Esther both say I may be his partner, but I shall not. I am
coming back to Woodford after I graduate and help Dr. Barton. Thank
heavens, he and Rose Dyer finally decided to marry last month. It will
take both of them to look after little Faith. That child is so queer and
fanciful I am afraid she may turn out a poet." And Sylvia did not smile
or have the least understanding that she had said anything amusing when
her friend led her back inside the cabin living room.

Then Meg Everett and her brother John strolled out into the night air,
arm in arm, and went and piled logs on the camp fire farthest away from
the house.

Meg wore nothing on her head in spite of the cold, so that her
yellow-brown hair blew about her face in shocking confusion. Yet her
elder brother did not seem to be in a sufficiently critical mood tonight
to notice it.

"Don't stay outdoors too long or go far away from the cabin, Betty; I am
so afraid you may take cold," Esther Ashton whispered ten minutes after
John and Meg had come in, wrapping her own long white fur coat about her
sister. Esther had been married now for two weeks and she and Richard
Ashton had returned from their honeymoon journey to spend the holidays
with their own people before leaving for Boston. So Esther was in bridal
white, with no other color than her crown of red hair. Betty wore the
last frock she had bought in London before sailing for home, having paid
a great deal more for it than she felt that she should, just to taste
the joy of being extravagant once again. It was of blue velvet with a
silver girdle, with silver embroidery about the throat. Instead of
jewelry she wore her chains of Camp Fire honor beads.

"No, I won't be gone long, dear," Betty answered. "I have promised too
many people to dance with them. But it is such a glorious night! And I
have told Anthony Graham that I would look at the beautiful picture our
cabin makes with the camp fires burning around it. The moon is now just
above the top of the old hill."

At this moment Dick Ashton joined them. "Moo