“Well, fire away with your tale, Miss Ashton,” suggested Cricket somewhat impatiently, “and don’t make it too goody-goody if you can help it. Most of us are anxious to hear.” Cricket had pretty gray eyes and a great deal of fluffy brown hair, but otherwise the face was plain, except for its clever, good-natured expression. She gave a sudden side glance toward the figure on the bed only a dozen feet away and Betty’s glance followed hers.
She saw that the red rose had been taken off the pillow and that the eyes that had been staring at the ceiling were gazing toward her. However, their look was anything but friendly.
For some foolish, unexplainable reason the girl made Betty think of Polly. Yet this child’s eyes were black instead of blue, her hair short and curly instead of long and dark. And though Polly had often been impatient and dissatisfied, thank heaven she had never had that expression of sullen anger and of something else that Betty could not yet understand.
For Betty had of course to turn again toward her auditors and smile an entirely friendly and charming smile.
“May I take off my hat first? It may help me to think,” she said. Then when Cricket had helped her remove both her coat and hat she sat down again and sighed.
“Do you know I have come here under absolutely false pretences? I announced that I had a story to tell, but I simply can’t think of anything that would entertain you in the least and I should so hate to be a bore.”
Then in spite of her twenty-one years, Betty Ashton seemed as young as any girl in the room. Moreover, she was exquisitely pretty. Her auburn hair, now neatly coiled, shone gold from the light behind her. Her cheeks were almost too flushed and every now and then her dark lashes drooped, shading the frank friendliness of her gray eyes. She wore a walking skirt, beautifully tailored, and a soft white silk blouse with a knot of her same favorite blue velvet pinned at her throat with her torch-bearer’s pin.
Agnes Edgerton, the former reader of Little Women, made no effort to conceal her admiration. “Oh, don’t tell us a story,” she protested, “we read such a lot of books. Tell us something about yourself. Real people are so much more interesting.”
“But there isn’t anything very interesting about me, I am far too ordinary a person,” Betty returned. Then she glanced almost desperately about the big room. There was a mantel and a fireplace, but no fire, as the room was warmed with steam radiators. However, on the mantel stood three brass candlesticks holding three white candles and these may have been the source of Betty’s inspiration.
Outside the smoky chimney tops of old Boston houses and factories reared their heads against the winter sky, and yet Betty began her story telling with the question: “I wonder if you would like me to tell you of a summer twelve girls spent together at Sunrise Hill?” For in the glory of the early morning, with the Camp Fire cabin at its base, Sunrise Hill had suddenly flashed before her eyes like a welcome vision.