Over their Girl Scout costumes they were wearing semiofficial nursing uniforms, white cotton dresses and caps of their own design.
At present Dorothy McClain was leaning anxiously over the kitchen stove stirring a kettle of simmering milk into which she had just measured a proper amount of cocoa. Her face was flushed and she was looking so pretty that Tory sat watching her with a smile of satisfaction. She herself was engaged in cutting thin slices of bread. Of late more than one cause had conspired to make Dorothy less happy than usual.
“I do hope the first visit from our entire Patrol of Girl Scouts will not be too tiring for Miss Frean,” Dorothy remarked, aware that the other girl’s eyes were upon her and desiring to change the current of her thought.
Tory paused reflectively.
“I do not think it will hurt her in the least,” she announced. “You seem to forget that your father gave his consent to our meeting here a week ago and that Miss Mason, our Scout Captain, insisted on the delay. If Memory has recovered sufficiently to give up her trained nurse and submit to our ministrations for the past ten days, she is well enough for our tea party. The Girl Scouts have haunted the place ever since her illness. I suppose in a way it was a relief when she and Dr. McClain agreed to allow us to do the nursing, provided only two of us at a time would take charge. I specially asked to have you with me, Dorothy, as we were together on the morning when we suffered such suspense.”
Dorothy McClain straightened up and glanced around, the color slowly ebbing from her face and her clear eyes becoming disturbed and wistful.
“I wish all suspense ended in so happy a fashion, Tory dear!”
In her white cap and gown, with her dark eyes, slender face and full red lips, Tory appeared especially attractive. Her reddish gold hair, worn short, could not be tucked out of sight, but made a bright effect of contrasting color.
She drew her brows together and frowned, not angrily but seriously.
“The other thing you are thinking of will turn out happily soon, Dorothy, I am sure. Lance is a dreamer and I suppose is selfish, but Christmas is nearly here and he cannot let the Christmas season go by without writing your father and you where he is and what he is doing. It would be too hateful and too ungrateful!”