Marjorie dipped her hand into the water, forgetting for a moment the young man’s presence in her joy at the thought of what was in store for the patrol. The scout good times were not over, then; she could still look forward to one more party with the members of the senior patrol. She would have one more pleasant memory to store away for the time when she would be among strangers at college. How good Mrs. Hadley was to suggest such a thing! She was very happy.
But John abruptly interrupted her reverie.
“I want to tell you about Dorothy Snyder,” he said.
“Yes?” she answered, without raising her eyes from the water.
“It was she who suggested the house party. She is so anxious to meet you Girl Scouts.”
“Oh!” remarked Marjorie, a trifle coolly. “So she will be there?”
“You don’t object, do you?” A cloud passed over John’s face. “You see she lives with my mother.”
“With your mother? Why? Is she a nurse? Is your mother so ill—?”
“No, no, not at all!” he replied, hastily. “I want to tell you her story—of the strange way she came to us. Mother found her alone and sick, in a pavilion.”
In a few brief words he summed up the facts of Dorothy’s case as he knew it, up to the time he received his telegram to go to the West. He recounted her strange desire to meet the Girl Scouts of Miss Allen’s School, which at the time seemed to him unaccountable.