“I think perhaps I can keep on bearing it, Anastasia,” Faith said in a voice that was only fairly brave, “if only you will stay with me and not let all those strange girls drive you and Gloria away. When they talk so much it seems as though I can’t remember you and it makes me want to go home.”
Her voice broke and Rose peering out was deeply mystified. The little half-sick girl was plainly alone and plainly dreadfully homesick, but with whom could she be talking?
“I don’t mind the Rose one so much, Gloria,” she continued, “but Dr. Ned said she was as nice as my mother, even nicer I believe he thought her. Yet he does not even look at her and hardly speaks to her when he comes to visit me.” And here Faith dropped her pale face into her small gloved hands and began to cry just as Rose appeared with her lunch.
Nevertheless, by the exercise of as much tact and patience as Miss Dyer had ever used in her society days to charm the coldest and most obdurate of her critics, finally she managed to persuade Faith to explain to her with whom she had been talking and just who were the mysterious persons Gloria and Anastasia. Of course, with many blushes Faith made her confession, understanding that she was now far too old for any such fanciful nonsense. Yet she did tell Rose with a good deal of pleasure toward the last that the two names represented two older sisters with whom she had been pretending to play ever since she was a baby and who were really dearer to her and more actual than real people. Naturally the new Camp Fire guardian was puzzled over this wholly new problem, with a so much younger girl, and after thinking it over for a long time made up her mind to consult with Dr. Barton. For if ever the little girl were to recover her normal health under their Camp Fire rules she must certainly put away her morbid fancies. But the consultation gave the new guardian no satisfaction, appearing to estrange her more than ever from the young physician. For he and Rose disagreed about the method of Faith’s cure completely and it was ever the young man’s obstinacy that Rose had found it hardest to forgive. Actually Dr. Barton had the stupidity to lecture Faith about her cherished secret and even to betray her to Sylvia, who tried reasoning with her every night while putting her to bed. Fortunately, however, Rose Dyer had not had a colored Mammy for nothing, having grown up on splendid fairy and folk-lore stories, so that by degrees she managed to interest little Faith in the things outside her own mind, in real Camp Fire games and work, and finally in the girls themselves, until, growing less afraid, Faith found Mollie, Polly and Betty better substitutes than the sisters of her dreams. And by and by through their guardian’s advice the little girl was permitted to enter the Sunrise club as a Wood Gatherer. There she grew to be more and more faithful to its rules and ideals, until after a while her too vivid imagination seemed to be fairly well under her control. If later in life, however, her fancy was to lead her into strange experiences, soon no one would have guessed it, for March found Faith stronger than ever before in her life and utterly attached to Rose Dyer. Still looking like our little golden haired Christmas angel, Polly once remarked, but like the angel after she had eaten the Christmas dinner.
Nevertheless, though Sylvia fully understood that all Faith’s devotion was now bestowed on their Camp Fire guardian, now and then she used to wonder why Faith did not show any liking for her. Certainly she had given her the tenderest physical care, making her follow faithfully every Camp Fire health rule, live outdoors, sleep and eat all she should.
It was also puzzling to Sylvia, just as it has often been to older persons, why after a few weeks every girl in the Sunrise camp seemed to feel a special affection for little Faith. She never appeared to do anything to try to deserve it, except to be pretty and have curly light hair, big gentle, blue eyes and a timid and appealing manner, while Sylvia, who spent most of her time making herself as useful as possible to her friends, was not particularly loved, not even by Polly. And for Polly O’Neill, Sylvia Wharton’s devotion has never for a single instant wavered and never will, even when the future puts it to many difficult tests. For faithfulness to an idea, a conviction or a person will ever be Sylvia’s predominant trait of character, and while it may not make her appear on the surface as loving or lovable as some of her companions, it would be well if she could now know that it will be to her the other girls will always turn in after years when they stand in need of sensible advice or even of real practical assistance. And this was to be particularly true of Polly O’Neill in her not very peaceful life, so it was unfortunate that poor Sylvia had now to fight down many pangs of foolish jealousy through seeing that Polly as well as the other girls made a special pet and plaything of the newest comer.
But if Faith had unconsciously made Sylvia suffer now and then, she also accomplished another result. Just at first Betty Ashton had imagined that there might be some unknown bond of interest between Rose Dyer and young Dr. Barton, cemented before Rose’s entrance into their club as guardian. But now she gave up the impression, believing thoroughly that Rose found the cold, puritanical young man actually distasteful in spite of his many acts of kindness to the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.
CHAPTER XVIII
Donna and Her Don
However, if none of the Camp Fire girls thought of a possible romance between their new guardian and the young physician, now established as the regular visiting doctor at the Sunrise cabin, when the month of March was passing and the New Hampshire snows beginning to show every now and then a tendency toward melting, indicating the return of the ever romantic spring, there was a good deal of carefully whispered discussion about the chief Camp Fire guardian, Miss Martha McMurtry. Their guardian of the preceding summer liked best that the girls should call her by her Camp Fire title, “The Madonna of the Hill,” shortened for use into the Italian “Donna.” In the first weeks at camp the summer before, Miss McMurtry had seemed to some of the Camp Fire girls a sort of heaven-appointed old maid, a regular born and bred one. As she had lived and worked through the outdoor months with such a variety of girls, gradually this old-maidish appearance had worn off, until now there were actually self-evident reasons for believing that Donna had a real bona fide admirer in the person of the poor German gentleman who had rescued Betty and Esther on that memorable December evening in the snow and, through their acquaintance, had since come to know every member of the club.
It is but natural to suppose that the first breath of this suggestion may have been introduced by Esther Clark, since she had best opportunities for making observations. Yet actually it was Betty Ashton who first whispered it to Esther, next to Polly, and afterward it traveled very naturally about the select Camp Fire circle.