“Oh, how beautiful it all is!” she said. “I don’t see how any of us could ever have laughed at the Camp Fire! But, of course, we didn’t know, about all this, or we never would have laughed as we did.”
“I love the part about ‘So cleave to these others, your sisters,’” said Dolly. “It’s so fine to feel that wherever you go, you’ll find friends wherever there’s a Camp Fire–that you can show your ring, and be sure that there’ll be someone who knows the same thing you know, and believes in the same sort of things!”
“Yes, that’s lovely, Dolly. Of course, we’ve all read about this, but you have to do it to know how beautiful it is. I’m so glad you girls were here for this first Council Fire of ours. You know how everything should be done, and that seems to make it so much better.”
“It would have pleased you just as much, and been just as lovely if you’d done it all by yourselves, Marcia. It’s the words, and the ceremony that are so beautiful–not the way we do it. Every Camp Fire has its own way of doing things. For instance, some Camp Fires sing the Ode to Fire all together, but we have Margery do it alone because she has such a lovely voice.”
“I think it was splendid. I never had any idea she could sing so well.”
“Her voice is lovely, but it sounds particularly soft and true out in the open air this way, and without a piano to accompany her. Mine doesn’t–I’m all right to sing in a crowd, but when I try to sing by myself, it’s just a sort of screech. There isn’t any beauty to my tones at all, and I know it and don’t try to sing alone.”
“Aren’t they all in now?” asked Bessie.
There had been a break in the steady appearance of new candidates before Eleanor. But, even as she spoke, another figure glided into the light.
“No. There’s Gladys Cooper,” said Marcia, with a little start.
“I wonder if she sees what there is to the Camp Fire now,” said Dolly, speculatively.