“So do I,” said Winona. “I love it.”
“Do you?” said Nataly. “I shouldn’t think so—you seem so—athletic.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” said Winona innocently, beaming with pleasure. “But I’m not, particularly. I can swim, of course, and row and paddle a little, and play tennis a little. But I’ve never played hockey or basket-ball, either of them, much. Or baseball.”
“Do girls play baseball up here?” demanded Nataly, sitting up and letting a paper novel with a thrilling picture on the cover slide to the floor.
“They do,” averred Winona solemnly, but with sparkling eyes. She was tempted to go on shocking her hostess by thrilling stories of invented boxing-matches between herself and her little schoolmates, but she thought better of it. “But that wasn’t really what I came about,” she went on, looking longingly at the closed window, for the airless room was beginning to make her cheeks burn. “Next week the Scouts are giving us Camp Fire Girls a dance, you know—and you are coming, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I think so,” Nataly spoke slowly, lying back on the sofa and beginning to finger her paper novel again.
“Well”—it came out with rather a rush—“would you like to join the Camp Fire? I think you’d like it.”
She went on enthusiastically telling Nataly all about it, till she was brought up short by a genuine and unsuppressed yawn on Nataly’s part.
“All that work?” said Nataly plaintively. “Oh, I couldn’t do any of those things—I’d die!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Winona was a little taken aback. The idea of considering whether things were too much trouble or not was a new one to her. She had always gone on the principle that—why—you wanted to plunge into things head-foremost, and do them with all your might—that was the way to have fun! So the idea of lying on a sofa and shuddering at the idea of work was a great surprise.