Dick, however, after hearing her excited outcry, had whipped out a penknife. There was a zip, the string was off, the box slipped out of the paper, and then the girl, with radiant, mystified eyes, was looking down at a Pioneer uniform, a jaunty little affair, with its red tie and red-banded hat to complete the outfit.
“Don’t stand there and gape at it any longer, Nathalie,” imperiously voiced Dick, with an odd gleam in his eyes. “Look at the card and see who sent it!”
CHAPTER XVI—PIONEER STUNTS
An exclamation escaped dazed Nathalie; and then a search was started, resulting at last in finding the card in one of the pockets of the skirt. Another cry issued from the finder as she read:
| “To Nathalie, my faithful little nurse and helper. “Lucille.” |
“O dear!” said the girl with a shamed glance into the faces surrounding her, “I will never again say that Lucille is cross—oh, she is a duck of a dear! It is the very thing I want, too. Now I shall not be the only Pioneer without a uniform. I must run and tell Helen!” In another moment she was racing with mad speed across the lawn, the uniform bulging out of the half-opened box in her arms.
In a short space she came speeding back, crying, “Oh, Mother, where is Lucille? I must go and thank her this very minute!”
“Up in her room, I think,” spoke up Dick, but Nathalie was already half-way up the stairs.
“Lucille, it was just too lovely of you to think of me this way!” cried the girl rapturously; and then before Lucille realized what was going to happen, she was receiving a hug that threatened to demolish her entirely. “There, Nathalie Page,” she cried, “that’s more than enough; please leave just a wee bit of me, I’ll take your thanks for granted.”
“No, you won’t!” persisted Nathalie with another hug. “I’m here to give them to you in person.” She loosened her hold so her cousin could breathe and then began to kiss her softly on the cheek. “Oh, but, Lucille, it was lovely of you to think of it,” she ended as she finally freed her cousin, who ruefully began to twist up a few stray locks that had been pulled down in the hugging process.