Sylvia Wharton had been in the act of wrapping a white woolen shawl about the small Faith, who was cuddled close to Rose Dyer, but now she stopped and stared hard at Mollie and then at Polly with an apparently wooden expression of face.
“What makes you feel things won’t be different for you and that your mother will go back to work?” she stammered, feeling their guardian give a little warning tug at her dress but unable to change the form of her question once it had taken a start in that way in her mind.
However, both the sisters only laughed, Polly exclaiming in an amused tone: “Of course we don’t know anything definitely, oh Sylvia, in this world of surprises, but merely that present indications point the way Mollie has just mentioned.” Fortunately, Polly, who was usually quick as a flash to follow up any suggestion, had her mind on other than her own affairs to-night.
“Esther,” she continued the next moment, “this is a kind of confessional to-night, or at least it may be if we girls decide that we are willing to confide in one another (autobiography is so much more interesting than history anyhow), so I wonder if you would mind telling us why you changed your mind so suddenly about going away from Woodford to study. At first you said nothing in the world would persuade you to go and then all of a sudden, after Betty’s misfortune, when it looked as though you might be a help to her, you determined to leave. Don’t answer me if you don’t like, Esther, I know you have a perfectly good reason. Of course I change my mind without a reason, but you don’t.”
Esther now felt that the eyes of all the members of the Camp Fire circle were fixed upon her and that many of them held the same question that Polly had just so frankly asked.
For a moment she hesitated, looking a little appealingly at Miss McMurtry and then at Rose Dyer. Rose nodded her head.
“I would tell just what I felt, Esther, as far as you can,” Rose recommended. “It is only fair to you that Betty’s dearest friends should understand your position, even though you would rather that Betty herself should not know. I feel you can trust them to keep your secret.”
Esther wound the seven strings of honor beads into a single chain before she spoke. “It sounds rather absurd of me and pretentious I know,” she began slowly; “of course I have a great many reasons in my mind why I feel it best for me to go away from Woodford right now and the most important one I cannot tell, but there is another which perhaps I have the right to let you try to understand. I am not deserting Betty just when she seems to need me most; it is because Betty now is poor and some day I may be able to help her if I do go away and succeed with my music that I am willing to go. You see Betty has done such a lot for me and has wanted to do so much more and—and—” Esther could not continue with her confession, but it was hardly necessary, for rising from her place Polly marched solemnly around their circle and sitting down by Esther put her arm about her neck.
“I understand you perfectly now, Esther, though I want you to believe that no one of us has ever doubted you. You are too unselfish and too unworldly to care to make a big success in the world with your talent if it is only for yourself, but the thought that maybe you can some day bring back wealth and happiness again to the Princess makes most any effort worth while?”
Esther bowed her head, too full of emotion to answer Polly’s question in words.