“Oh! we leave here—I leave here on the tenth of July, seven weeks from now, to pick up my Camp Fire sisters just over the Massachusetts line, where we follow the Greylock Trail until we strike the Long Trail winding right through the Green Mountains, from end to end.”
The girl paused, the lure of the Long Trail unwinding itself remotely in her blue eyes.
“But we don’t follow that, for long, either; we branch off along other mountain trails and—and little snaky, brown roads that stand on their hind legs and grope for the sky,” laughingly, “until—until—four days’ hiking and sleeping out at night—” Pemrose waved a letter, just received—“we come to Mount Pocohosette at the heart of the Green Mountains—”
“Pocohosette!” Una sprang erect and clapped her hands. “Why—why that’s where your horse-farm is, Daddy, and I’ve never—never been up there.”
“I only bought it and stocked it last year, down in the valley, the rich bottom lands at the foot, and put a ‘canny’ farmer in charge of my Morgan thoroughbreds.” Mr. Grosvenor laughed. “Well, go on with your program,” he looked at Pemrose.
“The mountain is very wild, so I understand—adventure by the yard!” beamed the blue-eyed girl. “A—a rocky Balcony, half way up, where you can stand on the lip of nothing and look down!”
“Oh-h! lovely,” shivered Una; for her such a breakneck blank had a fascination—fancy could always people it.
“The Guardian—Guardian of our Camp Fire Group hopes to rent some old farmhouse for a week or two.” Pemrose glanced at her letter.
“How about a month or two—eh?” The fluttering eyeglasses in Mr. Grosvenor’s hand reflected, now, the deepest twinkle in the eye above them—is there any role more gratifying to a “high-powered” humanitarian than to play fairy godfather to a group of girls? “If—if I might suggest,” he said slowly, “there’s a jolly nice sort of camp—pine-log cabin—there already, on the breezy sidehill, just a mile and a half above the horse-farm, which I used for hunting quarters, before I was seized with the passion for raising Morgan horses. If your Group will accept the loan of it ... there, I’ll write to the Guardian to-day.”
“Oh-h! Mr. Grosvenor....” The light fairly swooned in Pemrose’s blue eyes.