“Oh, Nan, I do want to be forgiven for something. You’ve been so kind to help me and I’ve been so horrid and mean to you.”
“Why, Muriel, you have never been horrid or mean to me.”
“Oh, yes, I have. Only yesterday I was planning to do something that I thought would turn the girls all against you. I was jealous, I suppose, because Professor Bentz always holds you up as a model. Then I overheard you talking to the gypsies and that night I visited their camp and found out that you were one of them, and so I decided that if you won the gold medal I would tell every one in the school about it. There now, don’t you call that being mean and horrid?”
Nan’s joyous laugh rang out, and she gaily exclaimed:—“Oho, so you are the enemy I have been looking for?” Then she added, with sudden seriousness: “My dear Muriel, I am not ashamed because I am a gypsy, and I would gladly have proclaimed it from the top of Little Pine Hill if I had not promised Miss Barrington that I would not.”
“And you’re going to forgive me?” Muriel asked, although she knew the answer before it was spoken.
“There is nothing to forgive. Hark! Someone is coming. Who do you suppose that it is?”
There was a merry rapping on the door, and then it was opened, revealing two maidens. There was an expression of surprise on the pretty face of the younger girl, but it was Phyllis who exclaimed, “Well, Nan, here you are. I have hunted for you high and low. I just met Daisy in the corridor and she was searching for Muriel.” Then, glancing from one expressive face to the other, she added: “What has happened? You girls look as though you had a secret.”
“So we have,” Nan laughingly replied. “I was just going to tell Muriel a story and if you girls will come in and be seated, you too, may hear it.”
Phyllis, wondering what it all might mean, listened with increasing interest as Nan told about the caravan of Queen Mizella and about the loving kindness of Manna Lou to the little crippled boy, Tirol, and to the little orphan girl whose mother had died so long ago.
“I didn’t know that there were such good, unselfish women among the gypsies,” Phyllis declared, “but, Nan, why are you telling us this story?”