"Then you think she's well and happy?"
"I'm quite sure of it," said Jamieson heartily. "This isn't some foreign country. It's America, where there are plenty of people to notice anything that seems wrong or out of the ordinary; And if they were treating Zara badly, she'd be pretty sure to find someone who would help her to get away."
"Yes, this is America," said Bessie, thoughtfully. "But you see, Zara has lived in countries where things are very different. And maybe she doesn't know her rights. After all, you know, she thinks her father hasn't done anything wrong, and still she's seen him put in prison and kept there. What I'm afraid of is that she'll get to think that this is just like the countries she knows best, and be afraid to do anything, or try to get help, no matter what they do."
"Well, we mustn't borrow trouble," said Jamieson, frowning slightly at the thoughts Bessie's words suggested to him. "We can't do anything more now, that's sure. Have a good time, and stop worrying. That's the best legal advice I can give you right now."
Once her mind was made up, Eleanor acted quickly. The outing at her father's farm, which was not at all like the Hoover farm in Hedgeville of which Bessie King had such unpleasant memories, was one that had long been promised to her girls, and she herself had been looking forward to going there. The troubles of Bessie and Zara had almost led her to abandon the idea of going there herself, and she had arranged for a friend to take her place as Guardian for a time. Now, however, she sent word to all her girls, and that very evening they met at the station and took the train for Deer Crossing, the little station that was nearest to the farm.
"They'll meet us in the farm wagons," said Eleanor, when the girls were all aboard. "So we'll have a ride through the moonlight to the farm—the moon rises early to-night, you know."
It was a jolly, happy ride in the train, and Bessie, renewing her acquaintance with the Camp Fire Girls, who had seemed to her and Zara, when they had first seen them, like creatures from another world, felt her depression wearing off. They had a car to themselves, thanks to the conductor, who had known Eleanor Mercer since she was a little girl, and as the train sped through the country scenes that were so familiar to Bessie, the girls laughed and talked and sang songs of the Camp Fire, and made happy plans for walks and tramps in the country about the farm.
"It's just like the country around Hedgeville, Miss Eleanor," said Bessie, as the Guardian stopped beside the seat she shared with her first chum among the Camp Fire Girls, Minnehaha. "The houses look the same, and the stone fences, and—oh, everything!"
"I wonder if you aren't a little bit homesick, down in your heart, Bessie?" laughed Miss Mercer. "Come, now, confess!"
"Perhaps I am," said Bessie, wonderingly. "I never thought of that. But it's just for the country, and the cows and the animals, and all the things I'm used to seeing. I wouldn't go back to Maw Hoover's for anything."