“Do you think those scoundrels will come back?” questioned Elfreda as they were returning to camp.
“Not in the daytime. If you mean will they bother us in future, I will say yes, and, being a prudent person, I shall try to be prepared for them this evening.”
“You are a queer girl, Loyalheart. The longer I know you the less I understand you. You are the gentlest, sweetest woman I have ever known, but under the surface you have an armor of steel,” declared Miss Briggs.
“This mountain air surely is making you light-headed, Elfreda dear,” laughingly retorted Grace Harlowe. “I am a woman like yourself, no different, and, like yourself, I have fairly good control over my nervous system. Youth and years of outdoor activity have given me the qualities you have in mind.”
“Perhaps that is it. It has given you something else, too—it has given you beauty of face and figure, given you a better understanding and a greater love for your friends, and mankind in general.”
Grace nodded over the latter sentiment.
“If all young women could come to understand what outdoor life means to one, I do not believe they would cling to the town, to their late hours, late suppers and nerve-breaking rounds of social pleasures. It is no especial credit to a woman to be beautiful; it is her duty to be so. Any woman whom nature has endowed with a substantial physical foundation may be beautiful, but not from wearing fashionable clothes or the use of cosmetics. Right here in the open is the remedy free to all. The open spots, Elfreda; God’s free air; healthful, wholesome exercise, and right thinking and right doing. Pardon me, dear. I do not often open my heart like this, though I think of these things every day of my life.”
“I call yours a pretty good religion,” declared Elfreda with emphasis.
“I do not call it my religion,” objected Grace. “Rather, is it my rule of practice. One might call it the application of the greater principle.”
“We are wading into deep water. Suppose we have breakfast,” twinkled Miss Briggs.