"Then I think you were very brave," continued Letty.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Esther Ann, "that wasn't anything to do. Just wait till you see what I am going to do."
"What, Esther Ann? What?" clamored the girls.
"Wait till this afternoon and you will see," was all Esther Ann would say to satisfy their curiosity.
This being Friday and Edna's last day at her grandmother's, her friends begged that she be allowed to go with them to school that afternoon. "We don't have real lessons," Reliance told her, "for Miss Fay reads to us, and we have a sewing lesson."
"I'd love to go," said Edna, "and I could take the work bag I am making for Celia. I could finish it, I think. May I go?"
"I haven't the slightest objection," Mrs. Conway assured her. So she set off with Reliance, and felt quite at home since she knew all the girls of her own age, and older, and, as she said, "the littler ones don't count."
Everything moved along pleasantly during the school session, and the girls started along in a bunch toward home. "You just come with me, Edna," said Esther Ann. "You see you are a member of the club, too, and this will be your only chance to do a deed. The others can follow along if they want. I'll tell you what I am going to do and you can take part, if you like."
The others were both timid and curious, and were quite content to obey Esther Ann's suggestion to "follow on." Edna, it may be said, was not inspired with that wholesome dread of old Nathan which possessed the others, for she had not been brought up under the shadow of his ogre-like actions, and she felt that this was an opportunity which she could not neglect. She trotted along valiantly by Esther Ann's side, the others keeping a safe distance behind.
"Tell me what you are going to do," said Edna to her companion, as they proceeded on their way.