Moreover, she had a passion for looking after people who needed her. Kara was almost embarrassed by her kindness and her attentions until Tory confided the discovery she lately had made that her aunt required just what Kara could give her. Certainly Miss Victoria would rather have perished than confess the fact that in the past year she had suffered many qualms of jealousy over her brother’s and niece’s congeniality and a devotion that had left her out in the cold.
Kara had improved, but still continued to be troubled by a curious lack of sensation. She was forced to spend the greater part of her time either upon a couch or in a chair. It was difficult for Tory, who was not conspicuously unselfish; yet she had the generosity to leave Kara and her aunt alone as often as she could decide to make the sacrifice of the few remaining hours with the girl friend whom she had cared for from the hour of their original meeting.
The Round Table was toward the close of Kara’s stay in Westhaven. She was to sail early in May and must be back in New York for a week or more before the date set.
Without wavering, Kara still utterly declined to play any such fanciful rôle as a Knight of the Round Table. Notwithstanding Tory’s pleading, she would not come to the final meeting of the Round Table in any other costume than her Girl Scout one. She was keenly interested in the spectacle, however, and entreated the other Girl Scouts to allow her to see how they must have looked upon the Christmas Eve entertainment six months before.
The season made a difference in the decorations. No longer ornamented with pines and evergreens, the living-room of the House in the Woods was beautiful with spring flowers and shrubs.
Against the brown walls were branches of blossoming dogwood, long sprays of the fragrant, rose-pink trailing arbutus. On the mantel and tables were vases of white and purple lilacs and a single bowl of splendid crimson roses that had come to the House in the Woods with no card attached. The hostess understood, however, that they were a gift from Mr. Fenton.
To-night they stood in the center of the Round Table.
There was no raised dais, the Troop Captain insisting on having her place at the Round Table, which included Miss Frean.
Suspended from the rafters of the great room were the silver banners, no longer of unmarked silver cloth. Embroidered upon them in the chosen colors of the Knights were stories of their services during the past half year.
Edith Linder’s was the supreme achievement! No one of the Scouts in her Troop would have dreamed of disputing this fact.