CHAPTER VII
THE MAGIC CITY
The last sweet note hesitated, sighed, and softly merged in the crackling of the fire, and still their guardian did not move.
For a long moment she sat upright and still, her hands clutching the arms of her chair, her gaze fixed steadily on the tiny, darting flames. Perhaps she saw there even more than the girls sensed, for when she turned to them, her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“Girls, dear girls,” she cried, unsteadily, “what a welcome you have given me! And I had begun to think you had forgotten all about your guardian,” and as she spoke she held out her arms so that the girls came rushing.
Then such a hugging and kissing and asking of foolish questions and answering of them in like, but delightful manner, until Mrs. Wescott was forced to say, laughingly and in the same old tone they had heard so often in camp:
“Girls, don’t you think it would be better to hear one at a time?”
The girls laughed gaily and settled themselves so near their guardian that “they couldn’t possibly miss a word,” as Jessie explained afterward when describing the scene to her mother.
“Oh, it’s a sight for sore eyes to see all my camp-fire girls again,” said Mrs. Wescott, as her eyes traveled happily over the little group about her.
Some threw themselves on the floor at her feet, while others were curled up on the huge divan, and Marjorie and Jessie perched on the arms of her chair. But all the bright faces were turned toward her with such happy and expectant interest that a lump seemed to rise in her throat, and she had much ado to speak at all. 43