For more than a week Olga, alone in her room, listened to the merry voices across the hall. Then one night, she put aside her work, and went across again.
“I’ve found out that I’m lonesome,” she said as Lizette opened the door. “May I come in?”
“Well, I guess!” and Lizette drew her in and motioned to the bed. “You shall have a reserved seat there with Bessie and Myra,” she cried, “and we’re gladder than glad to have you.”
For a moment sheer surprise held the others silent till Olga exclaimed, “Don’t let me be a wet blanket. If you do I shall run straight back.”
The tongues were loosened then and though Olga said little, the girls felt the difference in her attitude. She lingered a moment after the others left, to say, “Lizette, you mustn’t stay away any more. I really want you to come to my room.”
Lizette’s sharp eyes studied her face before she answered, “Yes, I see you do now, and I’ll come. I’ll love to.”
Back in her own room Olga turned up the gas and stood for some minutes looking about. Clean it was, and in immaculate order, but bare, with no touch of beauty anywhere. The contrast with the simple beauty of Lizette’s room made her see her own in a new light. The words of the Wood Gatherer’s “Desire” came into her mind—“Seek beauty.” She had not done that. “Give service.” She had given it, grudgingly at first to Elizabeth, grudgingly all this time to Sadie, grudgingly to Lizette, and not at all to any one else. Only one part of her promise had she kept faithfully—to “Glorify work.” She had done that, after a fashion. She drew in her breath sharply. “Lizette is a long way ahead of me. She is trying to be an all-around Camp Fire Girl. If I’m going to keep up with her, I must get busy,” she said to herself. “Before I can be Miss Laura’s Torch Bearer I’ve a lot to make up. Here I’ve been calling Sadie Page a selfish little beast and all the time I’ve been as bad as she in a different way. Well—we’ll see.”
She went shopping the next morning. Her purchases did not cost much, but they transformed the bare room. Cheesecloth curtains at the windows, a green crex rug on the dull stained floor, two red geraniums, and on the mantelpiece three brass candlesticks holding red candles. These and a few pretty dishes were all, but she was amazed at the difference they made. At six o’clock she set her door ajar, and when Lizette came, called her in.
“You are to have supper with me to-night,” she said.
“But I’ve had my supper. I——” Lizette began—then stopped short with a little cry, “O, how pretty! Why, your room is lovely now, Olga.”