“After all it is rather nice to be back here at our own little table, isn’t it?” Olga asked as they lingered over the meal.
Lizette looked at her curiously. “Olga Priest, what makes you so happy to-night?” she demanded. “I never saw you so before.”
“Maybe not quite so happy, but wasn’t I happy all the time at camp? Wasn’t I, Lizette?”
“Yes—yes, you were, only I didn’t notice it so much there with all the girls, and something always going on. You never were so here before. Sometimes you wouldn’t smile for days at a time.”
“I know. I hadn’t realised then that I could be happy if I’d let myself be—and that I had no right not to.”
“No right not to,” Lizette echoed with a puzzled frown. “I don’t see that. I should think anybody might have the privilege of being blue if she likes.”
“No.” Olga shook her head with decision. “No, not when she has health, and work that she likes, and friends. A girl has no right to be unhappy under those conditions—and I’ve found it out at last. I’m going to keep my Camp Fire promises now as I never have done.”
After a little silence she went on, “I’ve such beautiful plans for our Camp Fire this year! One of them is to learn all we can about our country. We can’t have Jim,” laughter flashed into her eyes as she thought of him, “thinking us less patriotic than his beloved Scouts. And we can see and learn so much right here in Washington! I’m ashamed to think how little I know about this beautiful city where I’ve lived all my life. I mean to ‘know my Washington’ thoroughly before I’m a year older.”
Lizette did not seem much interested in patriotism, but she laughed over the remembrance of the indignation of the girls at Jim’s remark about their lack of it. “He did look so plucky, facing us all that day, didn’t he!” she said. “And he was scared too at the rumpus he had raised; but all the same he didn’t back down.”
“No, Jim wouldn’t back down if he thought he was right no matter how scared he might be inside.”