They reached a point opposite the little forest, when, as they looked toward the sea, visible in spots between the trees, they discovered a row of tents, and in the center of an open space a flag fluttering from a sapling from which the limbs and foliage had been trimmed.
"It's Camp Wau-Wau!" shouted Crazy Jane. "Come along, darlin's. Let's see what else there is to surprise us."
The girls rushed in among the trees, shouting and laughing. They brought up in the middle of the encampment and halted. A middle-aged, pleasant-faced woman stepped from a tent, gazed at them a moment, then opened her arms, into which the Meadow-Brook Girls rushed, fairly smothering the woman with their affectionate embraces.
CHAPTER VI
AT HOME BY THE SEA
"Oh, my dear Meadow-Brook Girls!" cried the woman. "And I did not know you were coming. Why did you not let me know?" Mrs. Livingston, the Chief Guardian of the Camp Girls, held her young friends off the better to look at them.
"We did," replied Miss Elting. "When you wrote that you would be glad to have us join the camp, I made the arrangements and wrote you that we would be here yesterday."
"I never received the letter."
"But why do you call thith plathe Camp Wau-Wau?" demanded Grace. "Camp Wau-Wau ith in the Pocono Woodth, Mrs. Livingthton."