"I'm afraid it was, Miss Brown," said Eleanor, gravely. "And I need hardly say that I regret it. I naturally do not approve of anything of the sort. But your girls have themselves to blame to a certain extent."
"Why, I don't see how that can be!" said Miss Brown, looking bewildered.
"Now, Miss Brown, honestly, and just between us, haven't they made your life a burden for you ever since you've been here with them alone? Let me tell you what they've done since we've been here."
And calmly and without anger, Eleanor told the teacher of the various methods of making themselves unpleasant that the girls in the camp had adopted since the coming of the Camp Fire Girls. She raised her voice purposely when she came to the end.
"Now, mind, I don't approve of this joke with the mice," she said. "But I do think it would be more plucky if your girls, after starting all the trouble and making themselves as hateful as they possibly could, had kept quiet when the tables were turned. When they worried us, we didn't go over to make a complaint about them. I must say I am disappointed in those of your girls whom I happen to know, like Gladys Cooper. I thought she was a lady."
There was a furious cry from the darkness beyond the porch, and the next instant Gladys herself was in front of Eleanor, with tears of rage in her eyes.
"You shan't say I'm not a lady," she cried. "I don't care if you are Miss Mercer! We don't want your horrid charity girls up here, and we tried to make them understand it—"
"Stop!" said Eleanor, sternly. "Listen to me, Gladys! I like your mother, and I'm sorry to see you acting in such a way. What do you mean by charity girls?"
"They haven't got the money to come up here," stammered Gladys.
"It hasn't been given to them, if you mean that," said Eleanor. "We don't believe in idle, useless girls in the Camp Fire. And every girl here, even those like Dolly Ransom, who could have got the money at home very easily, have earned all their expenses for this vacation, except two who didn't have time, and are here as my guests. Don't talk about charity. They have a better right to be here than you have. Now go away, and if you don't want to have unpleasant things happen to you, don't do unpleasant things to other people."