CHAPTER V.
GIRLS COURAGEOUS.
"What's the matter, girls? You look as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders."
Miss Ladd spoke these words lightly as if to pass judgment on the conference as entirely too serious for a Christmas holiday occasion. Marion and Helen did not respond in tones of joviality, as might have been expected. They met her jocular reproach with expressions of such serious portent that the Guardian of the Fire could no longer look upon it as calling for words of levity.
"What's the matter, girls?" she repeated more seriously. "You look worried."
"Sit down, Miss Ladd, and read these letters I received last night," said Marion without any change of tone or manner. "They will explain the whole thing. We were just about to call you aside and lay our trouble before you."
"Trouble," Miss Ladd repeated deprecatingly, "I hope it isn't as bad as that."
She drew an upholstered armchair close to the girls and began at once to examine the letters that Marion handed to her. Marion and Helen watched her closely as she read, but the Guardian of Flamingo Fire indicated her strength of character by a stern immobility of countenance until she had finished both letters. Then she looked at Marion steadily and said inquiringly:
"I suppose you have no idea who wrote these letters?"