“Yes,” thoughtfully replied Carolyn. “Maybe she really does like Lucia and it isn’t just wanting to stand in with a title. That was good of Lucia, wasn’t it? She seemed so indifferent at first, but now she’s interested in things.”
“Mathilde doesn’t ‘really like’ Lucia much, Carolyn; but she ought to now. Isn’t this the prettiest part of the trail—don’t you think, so wild and lovely? You can’t even see a house from here. Look at those girls across there. This was the best way to come. They’re having a great time getting across that little branch of the run. Maybe the rain carried away that big log we used to cross on.”
Lucia appeared at the appointed place without her alpenstock. She had a few blossoms to show the girls and asked them what they were. “We have ever so many of the same trees and flowers that you do,” she said, “but there are some of these fall wild flowers that I never heard of.”
The girls discussed the flowers and then asked for Mathilde. “Oh, Mathilde’s in a good humor now,” smiled Lucia. “A truck came along with two girls sitting behind and dangling over the rear. I left Mathilde sitting beside them, but as she seemed to like my cane, I let her take it. It will help her when she walks again. The truck was going only a little way. The girls were laughing and having a great time of it.”
The rest of the trip was made in good time by the three girls, joined by others at different points; and when they came into the temporary camp, with its fires and moving figures of the committee and boys, to say nothing of the fresh arrivals—though Carolyn, Peggy and Lucia were among the first, oh, what enticing odors of cocoa and of bacon frying met them.
Betty, wearing her cotton crown with its “G. A. A.” came running up for a moment or two with the girls, answering their questions with, “Oh, everything is going off wonderfully. As soon as the girls all get here we’ll scramble the eggs and be ready. No, there isn’t a thing for anybody to do, only to see that no girl is too timid to get all she ought to have to eat. Carolyn, you’re great on looking up the girls with a timidity complex, so do your stuff, as Dick would say.”
“Note how Betty keeps on quoting from her brother,” laughed Peggy.
“It’s very convenient,” laughed Betty. “By the way, have you seen our boys? Do take Lucia over to where they are sometime when it seems appropriate, or drag them over to her, to meet her.”
“So your boys have to be dragged to meet me?” queried Lucia, but with a smile and a comical lifting of her brows.
“I’m not so sure,” said Betty, “but they are keeping in the background at present, for fear that Miss Fox’s cordiality will wax cool.”