“If your son has been adopted by people who love him and whom he loves and thinks are his parents, then I don’t think you have the least right to interfere, Herr Crippen. You went away and left him when he was a little baby to almost any kind of fate. Now you expect him to give up everything and everybody and come back to you, a perfect stranger. I am sure if I were in his place, I should love my adopted parents whom I had always believed to be my own far better than I could ever care for you.”
The big German dropped his head on his chest. Rose and Miss McMurtry got up quickly,
“Come, girls, we must be getting back home to the cabin or the other girls will believe we are lost. Run away, Betty, you and Esther, and get your coats and hats.”
But when the five people were leaving the big house together, Betty waited behind for a moment. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings about your son, Herr Professor,” she apologized. “I—I didn’t intend to be rude, and I should think just finding a wonderful daughter like Esther might make one happy enough.”
Herr Crippen opened his mouth intending to say something but evidently changed his mind as to what it should be. “You are very good, little lady, whom I haf heard your friends call Princess, and I haf no doubt that what you before said to me is most true.”
CHAPTER XXI
Misfortune
Several days later Dick Ashton, walking out to the Sunrise cabin from Woodford, unexpectedly caught up with Esther making the same journey. He came up to her side very quickly and with one look in his face the girl gave a cry of dismay. Dick was always serious and yet in spite of his seriousness there was no one with a keener appreciation of humorous situations and people, but to-day his face was drawn and there was a set look about his lips.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Esther,” Dick said quietly, “but I am very glad it is you I have met rather than any one of the other girls. I have bad news for Betty.”
Did Esther’s face for a fleeting instant show surprise and almost alarm?
“It has nothing to do with me, has it?” she asked, but Dick, shaking his head and hardly heeding her question, went on: