e been waiting a long
time to find out about myself, too. Sometimes I think I'm worse off than
Zara, because I don't know where my father and mother are, or even what
became of them."

The Guardian started.

"Poor Bessie!" she said. "But we'll have to try to find out for you.
There are ways of doing that that the Hoovers would never think of. And
I'm sure there'll be some explanation. They'd never just go away and
leave you, without trying to find out if you were well and look after
you."

"Not if they could help it, Miss Eleanor." Bessie's eyes filled with
tears. "But perhaps they couldn't. Perhaps they are--dead."

"We must try to be cheerful, Bessie. After all, you know, they say no
news is good news, and when you don't positively know that something
dreadful has happened, you can always go on hoping."

"Oh, I do, Miss Eleanor! Sometimes I've felt so bad that if I hadn't
been able to hope, I don't know what I'd have done. And Jake Hoover, he
used to laugh at me, and say that I'd never see them again. He said they
were just bad people, glad to get rid of me, but I never believed that."

"That's right, Bessie. You keep on hoping, and we'll do all we can to
make your hopes true. Hope is a wonderful thing for people who are in
trouble. They can always hope that things will be better, and if they
only hope hard enough, they will come to believe it. And once you
believe a thing, it's half true, especially when it's a question of
doing something."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, I'll try to explain. When Mrs. Chester first wanted me to take
charge of a Camp Fire, I thought I was just a silly, stupid, useless
girl. But she said she knew I wasn't, and that I could make myself
useful."

"You certainly have."

"I'm trying, Bessie, all the time. Well, she told me to wish that I
might succeed. And I did. And then I began to hope for it and to want it
so much that gradually I believed I could. And as soon as I believed it
myself, why, it began to come."

"You wanted to so much--that's why, I suppose."

"Yes. You see, when you believe you can do a thing, you don't get
discouraged when you fail at first. It's when you're doubtful and think
you can't do a thing at all, that it's hardest. Then when anything goes
wrong, it's just what you expected, and it makes you surer than ever
that you're going to fail."

"Oh, I see that! I understand now, I think."

"Remember that, Bessie. It's done me more good, knowing that, than