“Well,” Lizette yawned, “I’m so sleepy I can hardly hold my eyes open. Let’s wash the dishes and then I’m going straight to bed.”
She came in to breakfast the next morning in a different mood.
“Didn’t we have a glorious rain in the night!” she cried gaily. “And it left a lovely cool breeze behind it. Last night I felt like a wet rag, but this morning I’m a different creature. It is good to be ‘home’ again, Olga, and I don’t mind going back to the shop.”
“That’s good!” Olga’s eyes were shining as they had shone the night before.
The two set off together after breakfast, and wished each other good luck as they parted at the door of Miss Bayly’s shop. Lizette came back at night jubilant. “I got my good luck, Olga,” she cried. “I’m to have eight a week now. Isn’t that fine?”
“Indeed it is—congratulations, Lizette. And I had my good luck too—better than I dared hope for—two splendid orders. Now we can both settle down to work and get a nice start before the next Camp Fire meeting. I’m going to try to keep half a day a week free for our ‘learning Washington’ trips.”
“Personally conducted?” Lizette laughed.
“Personally conducted. Your company is solicited, Miss Stone, whenever your other engagements will permit.”
Over the tea-table they talked of work and Camp Fire plans, and then Lizette went off to her own “corner” and Olga took up a book. She had been reading for an hour when her quick ears caught the sound of hesitating steps outside her door—steps that seemed to linger uncertainly. Thinking that some stranger might have wandered in from the street, she rose and quietly slipped her bolt. As she did so there came a knock at the door. She stood still, listening intently. No one ever came to her door except the landlady or the Camp Fire Girls, and none of them would knock in this hesitating fashion. She was not in the least timid, and when the knock was repeated she opened the door. She found herself facing a woman, young, in a soiled and wrinkled dress and shabby hat, and carrying a baby in her arms.
“Olga—it is Olga?” the woman exclaimed half doubtfully.