"That's just it, Bessie. I can see that you're going to be just the sort of girl I want in my Camp Fire. Anyone who had the money—and they don't cost much—could buy the beads and string them together. But it's only a Camp Fire Girl, who's worked for honors herself, who knows what it really means, and sees that the beads are just the symbol of something much better."
"Aren't there Torch-Bearers, too, Miss Eleanor?"
"Yes. That's the highest rank of all. We haven't any Torch-Bearer in our Camp Fire yet, but we will have soon, because when you girls join us there'll be nineteen girls, and there ought to be a Torch-Bearer."
"She'd help you, wouldn't she, Miss Eleanor?"
"Yes, she'd act as Guardian if I were away, and she'd be my assistant. This is her desire, you know, 'That light which has been given to me, I desire to pass undimmed to others.'"
"I'm going to try to be a Torch-Bearer whenever I can," said Zara.
"There's no reason why you shouldn't be, Zara. That ought to be the ambition of every Camp Fire Girl—to be able, sometime, to help others to get as much good from the Camp Fire as she has herself."
While they talked it had been growing darker. And now Miss Mercer called to the girls.
"We're going to be driven over to the big camp, girls," she said. "I think we've had quite enough tramping for one day. I don't want you to be so tired that you won't enjoy the Council Fire to-night."
There was a chorus of laughter at that, as if the idea that they could ever be too tired to enjoy a Council Fire was a great joke—as, indeed, it was.