“Well, I certainly have got a better opinion of country people than I ever used to have, Bessie,” said Dolly Ransom. “After the way those people in Hedgeville treated you and Zara, I’d made up my mind that they were a nasty lot, and I was glad I’d always lived in the city.”
“Well, aren’t you still glad of it, Dolly? I really do think you’re better off in the city. There wouldn’t be enough excitement about living in the country for you, I’m afraid.”
“Of course there wouldn’t! But I think maybe I was sort of unfair to all country people because the crowd at Hedgeville was so mean to you. And I like the country well enough, for a little while. I couldn’t bear living there all the time, though. I think that would drive me wild.”
“The trouble was that Zara and I didn’t exactly belong, Dolly. They thought her father was doing something wrong because he was a foreigner and they couldn’t understand his ways.”
“I suppose he didn’t like them much, either, Bessie.”
“He didn’t. He thought they were stupid. And, of course, in a way, they were. But not as stupid as he thought they were. He was used to entirely different things, and—oh, well, I suppose in some places what he did wouldn’t have been talked about, even.
“But in the country everyone knows the business of everyone else, and when there is a mystery no one is happy until it’s solved. That’s why Zara and her father got themselves so disliked. There was a mystery about them, and the people in Hedgeville just made up their minds that something was wrong.”
“I feel awfully sorry for Zara, Bessie. It must be dreadful for her to know that her father is in prison, and that they are saying that he was making bad money. You don’t think he did, do you?”
“I certainly do not! There’s something very strange about that whole business, and Miss Eleanor’s cousin, the lawyer, Mr. Jamieson, thinks so too. You know that Mr. Holmes is mighty interested in Zara and her father.”
“He tried to help to get Zara back to that Farmer Weeks who would have been her guardian if she hadn’t come to join the Camp Fire, didn’t he?”