“It isn’t just the going to bed,” remarked Margery, sagely.
“And it isn’t the prettiness either,” added Polly; “though if you saw Elsie asleep, a flower in one hand, the other under her cheek, her hair straying over the pillow (O for hair that would stray anywhere!), you would expect every moment to see a halo above her head.”
“I don’t believe it is because she is good that everybody admires her so,” said Laura, “I don’t think goodness in itself is always so very interesting; if Elsie had freckles and a snub nose”—(“Don’t mind me!” murmured Polly)—“you would find that people would say less about her wonderful character.”
“There are things that puzzle me,” said Polly, thoughtfully. “It seems to me that if I could contrive to be ever so good, nobody ever would look for a halo round my head. Now, is it my turned-up nose and red hair that make me what I am, or did what I am make my nose and hair what they are—which?”
“We’ll have to ask Aunt Truth,” said Margery; “that is too difficult a thing for us to answer.”
“Wasn’t it nice I catched that big bull-frog, Margie?” cried Dick, his eyes shining with anticipation. “Now I’ll have as many as seven or ’leven frogs and lots of horned toads when Elsie comes, and she can help me play with ’em.”
When the girls reached the tents again, the last article had been taken from the team and Manuel had driven away. The sound of Phil’s hammer could be heard from the carpenter-shop, and Pancho was already laying the tent floor in a small, open, sunny place, where the low boughs of a single sycamore hung so as to protect one of its corners, leaving the rest to the full warmth of the sunshine that was to make Elsie entirely well again.
“I am tired to death,” sighed Laura, throwing herself down in a bamboo lounging-chair. “Such a tramp as we had! and after all, the boys insisted on going where Dr. Winship wouldn’t allow us to follow, so that we had to stay behind and fish with the children; I wish I had stayed at home and read The Colonel’s Daughter.”
“Oh, Laura!” remonstrated Margery, “think of that lovely pool with the forests of maiden-hair growing all about it!”
“And poison-oak,” grumbled Laura. “I know I walked into some of it and shall look like a perfect fright for a week. I shall never make a country girl—it’s no use for me to try.”