ncorrigible. He does make me
so uneasy sometimes."

"There is nothing to do but wait patiently until the spirit moves him
to come back," put in Amy calmly. "He is so strong and well that perhaps
his wounds don't have to be dressed as often as other people's. There
seems to be a special Providence that looks after him anyhow. It would
be foolish to worry."

Nevertheless, Billie did worry considerably in her heart, and even
Phoebe, who presently joined them and was introduced to the girls,
looked startled and uneasy when she heard that Richard Hook, her
deliverer, had gone away without having his wound dressed.

The caravanners were greatly interested in seeing Phoebe, whose history
they had heard.

"She is very beautiful," Amy observed, "but she doesn't look human,
somehow. She has the expression of a person who sees visions, air
pictures invisible to other people."

"She is very religious," Billie replied. "Not like the religious people
we know, but--well like people in the time of Christ might have been.
You see she got it all herself without any outside teaching. She just
learned it out of the New Testament mostly, and she practices it all the
time. It's part of her life. Sometimes, I think it would be a pity to
interfere with it."

"How can you interfere with it, Billie?" asked Nancy.

"By taking her back to wicked West Haven with all its temptations,"
laughed Billie.

"But shall you?" they asked in a chorus.

"We can't leave her in this wild place."

"And her father?" put in Mary.

"You'll have to ask Dr. Hume about that," answered Billie, and not
another word would she say on the subject.

That morning the "Comet" conveyed a load of young people down to the
village. Miss Campbell ordered a telegram to be sent to her cousin,
demanding his immediate presence at the camp. Also a carpenter was
secured to build a new door for the living room. This time the village
street was singularly empty. No faces peeped from the half opened doors
and no crowd gathered at the town pump. The rickety old wooden hotel was
closed and the blinds drawn at every window. Evidently Richard Hook had
frightened Lupo and the innkeeper very effectually.

"I don't think they will ever trouble us again, Phoebe," Billie remarked
as they circled the pump and started home.

"They are sorry," said Phoebe compassionately. "They are like children,
and Mr. Hook understood that when he spoke to them as children. He is
very wonderful and