When Bessie and Dolly returned to their own camp they found Eleanor Mercer waiting for them, and as soon as she was alone with them, she did something that, for her, was very rare. She asked them about their talk with Marcia Bates.
“You know that as a rule I don’t interfere,” she said. “Unless there is something that makes it positively necessary for me to intrude myself, I leave you to yourselves.”
“Why, we would have told you all about it, anyhow, Miss Eleanor,” said Dolly, surprised.
“Yes, but even so, I want you to know that I’m sorry to feel that I should ask you to tell me. As a rule, I would rather let you girls work all these things out by yourselves, even if I see very plainly that you are making mistakes. I think you can sometimes learn more by doing a thing wrong, provided that you are following your own ideas, than by doing it right when you are simply doing what someone else tells you.”
“I see what you mean, Miss Eleanor,” said Bessie. “But this time we really haven’t done anything, We saw Gladys, too, and–”
She went on to tell of their talk with Marcia and of the unpleasant episode created by Gladys when she had overheard them talking.
“I think you’ve done very well indeed,” said Eleanor, with a sigh of relief, when she had heard the story. “I was so afraid that you would lose your temper, Dolly. Not that I could really have blamed you if you had, but, oh, it’s so much better that you didn’t. So Gladys has decided to stay, has she!”
“Yes,” said Dolly. “But Marcia seemed to think Miss Turner might make her go home.”
“She won’t,” said Eleanor. “She was thinking of it, but I have had a talk with her, and we both decided that that wouldn’t do much good. It might save us some trouble, but it wouldn’t do Gladys any good, and, after all, she’s the one we’ve got to consider.”
Dolly didn’t say anything, but it was plain from her look that she did not understand.