Never could Sylvia take things humorously. "Then you will show very poor judgment, Nan Graham. Richard Ashton is going to be a perfect wonder. Betty and Esther both say I may be his partner, but I shall not. I am coming back to Woodford after I graduate and help Dr. Barton. Thank heavens, he and Rose Dyer finally decided to marry last month. It will take both of them to look after little Faith. That child is so queer and fanciful I am afraid she may turn out a poet." And Sylvia did not smile or have the least understanding that she had said anything amusing when her friend led her back inside the cabin living room.
Then Meg Everett and her brother John strolled out into the night air, arm in arm, and went and piled logs on the camp fire farthest away from the house.
Meg wore nothing on her head in spite of the cold, so that her yellow-brown hair blew about her face in shocking confusion. Yet her elder brother did not seem to be in a sufficiently critical mood tonight to notice it.
"Don't stay outdoors too long or go far away from the cabin, Betty; I am so afraid you may take cold," Esther Ashton whispered ten minutes after John and Meg had come in, wrapping her own long white fur coat about her sister. Esther had been married now for two weeks and she and Richard Ashton had returned from their honeymoon journey to spend the holidays with their own people before leaving for Boston. So Esther was in bridal white, with no other color than her crown of red hair. Betty wore the last frock she had bought in London before sailing for home, having paid a great deal more for it than she felt that she should, just to taste the joy of being extravagant once again. It was of blue velvet with a silver girdle, with silver embroidery about the throat. Instead of jewelry she wore her chains of Camp Fire honor beads.
"No, I won't be gone long, dear," Betty answered. "I have promised too many people to dance with them. But it is such a glorious night! And I have told Anthony Graham that I would look at the beautiful picture our cabin makes with the camp fires burning around it. The moon is now just above the top of the old hill."
At this moment Dick Ashton joined them. "Moon, Betty Ashton," he began with a pretense of sternness, "is the very last word I wish to hear from your lips."
Then, as Betty ran away from the possibility of his further objecting to her departure, Dick turned seriously to Esther.
"Esther, if you have any influence with Betty, do please stop allowing her to have admirers. Tell her that she is not to be permitted to consider any one seriously, say for five or ten years."
As Esther laughed, he added, "Who is it that she has gone off in the moonlight with this time? Anthony Graham? Well, he is a fine fellow, but has his way to make, and thank fortune cannot think of marrying for several years!"
Down by the lake, which was frozen over with a thin coating of ice, forming a kind of mirror for the silver face of the moon, Anthony and Betty were at this moment standing in the shadow looking out over its surface.