She started away with Peggy, expecting the others to follow. Either Mrs. Burton had not heard her sister’s speech, or else believed that her beloved Mollie was only fussing over the newcomer’s health as she did over everybody’s.
“Thank you, I would rather not be troublesome,” the new girl answered.
At this she let go Dan’s arm and took a step forward. But the pain of walking alone was too great for her self-control.
As people always did in disaster she turned to Mrs. Webster.
“I fear I have hurt myself and it is so stupid of me. Really I don’t know what to do. You see I did not want to be discovered and when I heard some one coming after me I started to run. I must have tripped and fallen over a stump in the underbrush. As soon as I got up I was a prisoner.”
She flashed a peculiar glance at Dan Webster; but whether she was angry or amused over his discomfiture it was difficult to decide. Yet Dan looked wretched enough to satisfy the most teasing desire for revenge. He had the sweetest and most chivalrous temper in the world. No one ever remembered Dan’s deliberately hurting any one in his life. Now he undoubtedly felt as if he had caused a perfectly innocent girl to do herself a painful injury and had afterwards treated her with unpardonable rudeness. But it was not difficult to make Dan Webster feel himself in the wrong, both his sister Peggy, and his twin brother, frequently taking advantage of this trait of his character.
“You are not a prisoner in any sense,” Mrs. Webster replied, speaking more coldly, and appreciating Dan’s embarrassment. “But if you are hurt we shall be glad to do what we can for you and some one will drive you back to your home.”
More humbly the girl then took hold of Mrs. Webster’s proffered arm, and still holding on to Dan, started toward Mrs. Webster’s tent not many yards away.
In a curious fashion Dan felt that, in spite of her pretense of anger, the girl by his side felt a reliance upon him. And for some reason he could not explain he was interested in her. She was not half so pretty as many of the Camp Fire girls—Sally Ashton and Gerry Williams for instance. Yet there was something fascinating in her grey-green eyes, in her long nose with that funny twist at the end of it, and in the uncertainty of her behavior.
Naturally Dan thought it ridiculous of the strange girl to have been hiding about in their neighborhood for the very ordinary pleasure of beholding his famous aunt.