e a favor if you will."

Ethel assented and kissed Nora affectionately.

Nannie Bigelow arrived and the girl became a general favorite. She at
once fell in love with Nora.

"Why, she's a heroine," she said. "She'd give her life for another. I
think she's splendid."

Nannie had much to say of their New York Camp Fire, and of the girls who
belonged.

"You know some of them are quite unlike us, but Miss Westcott says
they'll improve--that being with us will make them more gentle. And
you have no idea how they _are_ improving. And as for Dorothy's nursery,
it's just booming. There is a waiting list a mile long," and she chatted
on, entertaining the girls with her talk.

At the next and last Council Meeting, the girls received honors for
having slept three months out of doors, for learning to swim, and rowing
twenty miles on the Muskingum River, and for sailing a boat without
help for fifty miles. They also received extra honors for cooking, and
for learning and making a mattress out of the twigs of trees; for long
walks, and for washing and ironing, which the girls did well.

Whenever she looked at Nora, Ethel's conscience troubled her. She seemed
to feel her own unworthiness. Mrs. Hollister suggested to Mr. Casey that
Nora should visit them for a couple of months in the city.

"I'll gladly let her go to ye next winter, Ma'am, but not to visit. I
would like her to be wid a grand lady like yourself, and if you'll let
me pay her board I'll consider it a great favor. And if she might go to
some fine school, Ma'am, where she could learn how to be a lady and stay
at your house I would pay any price."

At first Mrs. Hollister objected to the money part, but Mr. Casey begged
so hard that, realizing what Nora had done for Ethel, she felt she should
be willing to do anything to benefit her. So she consented.

"You can put me anywhere," said Nora, "I will be like one of your
family."

Mrs. Hollister put her arm around the girl.

"My dear," she said, "the best I have ought not to be good enough for
you. It's little enough for me to take you, and I should like to do so
without having your father pay me a penny."

So it was all arranged. In November, Nora was to become an inmate of the
Hollister household.

Ethel had made up her mind to give the girl her room, she taking one on
the top floor.

"I would gladly sleep on bare boards for her," she said to her
mother,--"the brave girl to whom I have been so unjust. I'm gla