"You see, Kate has a new fad," began Grandmother—"not a fad either; its purpose is too earnest to call it that. She is the head of a Company of girls called 'Camp Fire Girls.' They are something like the 'Boy Scout Organization.' The object is to make girls healthy. It gives them knowledge; it causes them to work and learn to love it; it makes them trustworthy; they begin to search for beauty in Nature and they're perfectly happy. I remember that much, but the sum and substance of it is that it teaches a girl everything that is useful. Kate is the Guardian of one Camp Fire section. They meet weekly and from what she tells me it must be a great thing. Kate spoke of it to Bella but she ridiculed it and forbade her to speak of it to Ethel. She declares it is like the Salvation Army, etc., and Kate promised not to, I think she had hoped to secure Ethel for one of the girls next summer."
"Well, there's no need of us trying to oppose Bella," said her son. "She is determined that Ethel shall make a brilliant match and in her eyes this would be a waste of time. No, Mother, the best thing for you and me to do is to travel along the lines of the least resistance. Come,—dinner is ready. I'll help you down."
CHAPTER V
AN INVITATION TO AUNT SUSAN
One afternoon Mrs. Hollister called Ethel into her room. After closing the door she said, "Ethel, I have written to your father's Aunt Susan, who lives in Akron, to come here and make us a visit. You know she's Grandmother's only sister, and I think it will do them both good to see each other. Grandmother is delighted and I expect that Aunt Susan will accept," and Mrs. Hollister calmly drew on her gloves.
Now, as her mother was not in the habit of considering her grandmother's comfort, and as the two women were seldom of one accord, Ethel looked at her furtively and with a puzzled expression of countenance, but that lady acted not the least embarrassed. It seemed strange to Ethel that all at once she should wish to cheer up her mother-in-law by inviting her country sister to visit them, but the girl simply said:
"That's lovely, Mamma," and went up to her room to study.
Although she disliked to credit her mother with such artifices, she finally hit upon a solution of the object of the invitation. It must be that it was Aunt Susan's money she was after, and why? Suddenly, it all came to the girl—it was to get Aunt Susan to like her (Ethel, her grand-niece) and make her her heiress, if not to all at least to a part of her fortune.
Ethel sat and gazed at the pretty room in which Mrs. Hollister had spent so much time decorating and making attractive. In her heart there was a desire to denounce her mother. Then, when she realized that it was all being done to benefit herself, she could feel nothing but pity for the woman whose one thought in life was for her daughter. She thought: "She will even tell people that I am Aunt Susan's heiress, and I must sit by and know that it is untrue. Everything is untrue in this house. Oh, how I wish I could get away from it all!" But to her grandmother she told her suspicions.
"Never mind, my lamb," said the old lady. "I know Susan well enough to say that she will love you for yourself, and probably she does intend to leave you and Kate half of her fortune at least. If it serves to help your mother socially, why Susan wouldn't care—she'd only laugh. Susan's very keen and sharp, my child. No one can make her do what she doesn't care to. Now don't you worry over anything. When she comes just be kind and polite to her and help make her visit pleasant."