, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure, though, that
they have invited some friends of theirs to use the camp next week and
stay as long as they like."

"I hope their friends will please the Halsted Camp crowd better than we
did," said Dolly, sarcastically. "The Worcesters ought to be very
careful only to let people come here who are a little better socially
than those girls. Then they'd probably be satisfied."

"Now, don't hold a grudge against all those girls, Dolly," said Eleanor,
smiling. "Gladys Cooper was really the ringleader in all the trouble
they tried to make for us, and you've had your revenge on her. On all of
them, for that matter."

"Oh, Miss Eleanor, if you could only have seen them when I threw that
basket full of mice among them! I never saw such a scared lot of girls
in my life!"

"That was a pretty mean trick," said Eleanor. "I don't think what they
did to bother us deserved such a revenge as that, even if I believed in
revenge, anyhow. I don't because it usually hurts the people who get it
more than the victims."

Bessie looked at Dolly sharply, but, if she meant to say anything,
Eleanor herself anticipated her remark.

"Now come on, Dolly, own up!" she said. "Didn't you feel pretty bad when
you heard Gladys and Marcia were lost in the woods last night? Didn't
you think that it was because you'd got the best of the girls that they
turned against Gladys, and so drove her into taking that foolish night
walk in the woods?"

"Oh, I did--I did!" cried Dolly. "And I told Bessie so last night, too.
I never would have forgiven myself if anything really serious had
happened to those two girls."

"That's just it, Dolly. You may think that revenge is a joke, perhaps,
as you meant yours to be, but you never can tell how far it's going, nor
what the final effect is going to be."

"I'm beginning to see that, Miss Mercer."

"I know you are, Dolly. You were lucky--as lucky as Gladys and Marcia.
You were particularly lucky, because, after all, it was your pluck in
going into that cave, when you didn't know what sort of danger you might
run into, that found them. So you had a salve for your conscience right
then. But often and often it wouldn't have happened that way. You might
very well have had to remember always that your revenge, though you
thought it was such a trifling thing, had had a whole lot of pretty
serious results."

"Well, I really am beginning to feel a little sorry," admitted Dolly,
"thoug