“Oh, yes. I expect to stay quite a while,” replied Nora. She liked the roguish smile Pell bestowed upon her—it was, somehow, a little like Barbara.
“Then perhaps you would like to visit camp,” pressed Thistle. “We love callers, don’t we, girls?”
This provided an opportunity for general conversation, and presently, no one knew just how it happened, but the Scouts and Nora the rebel, were having a perfectly splendid time on the side porch, talking about the things girls love to discuss, but which always appear to the onlooker or listener as a series of giggles and gasps.
Nora was so glad she wore the khaki suit. All her old love of finery was, for the time, lost in the joy of feeling “in place” instead of “out of place.” And the girls at close range did look very well in their uniforms. Betta and Thistle especially were just like models—Nora remembered that wonderful Girl Scout poster, and her former dislike for the uniform now threatened to turn to keen admiration. Just so long as anything “made a picture” the artistic little soul was sure to be satisfied. Changing an opinion was as simple a task for Nora as changing a hair ribbon, but it had been rather unpleasant to have the Scouts always held up as paragons.
Admitting she had not yet visited the Ledge, Nora was straightway invited to do so, as the four Scouts expected to meet the other troup members out gathering sweet fern there.
“Vita,” she called back to the maid in the kitchen, “you keep Cap home, I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Oh, no,” objected Vita. “Mr. Jerry, he say you don’t go never without Cap——”
“But I am with the girls now,” declared Nora a little sharply. She was so afraid the others might guess that it was she who wore the velvets! Looking very closely at each, however, she had not recognized the one who accosted her on the fatal dress-parade day. Alma was not in the party this time, so of course, Nora was correct in her opinion.
“Doesn’t Mr. Manton like to have you go out alone?” asked Thistle, innocently.
“Well, you see,” stumbled Nora, “I am not very well acquainted yet.”