_ CHAPTER II. ECHOES OF THE CAMP-FIRE
"But whatever put it into your head to take us along?" Jessie asked, after the first wild excitement had abated a trifle.
"Well, you see, it was this way," began Lucile, with the air of one imparting a grave secret. "When Dad came home last night, the first thing he did was to begin asking me a lot of foolish questions--or, at least, they seemed so to me. He started something like this: 'If you had your choice, what would you want most in the world----'"
"If he had asked me that, I wouldn't be through yet," Jessie broke in.
"Never mind her, Lucy," said Evelyn. "Go on, please."
"I felt very much that way myself, Jessie," and Lucile nodded understandingly at the ruffled Jessie. "Well," she went on, "I began naming over several things, and when I'd finished Dad looked so sad I thought I must have done something terrible, but when I asked him what was the matter he simply shook his head despairingly and sighed, 'Not there, not there.'"
The girls laughed merrily.
"Oh, I can just see him," chuckled Evelyn.
"Well, what then?" Jessie urged.
"Oh, I didn't know what to do," Lucile continued. "The more I asked him to explain, the more disconsolate he looked. When I couldn't stand it any longer I left the room, saying if he didn't want to tell me, he needn't. Then, when I got outside the door I could hear him chuckling to himself."
"Just like him," again interposed Jessie.
"Well, all the time I knew something was coming. At dinner it came when Dad calmly announced that he was going to Europe on business and that if his family wished--imagine that,
wished--he might let us go along."
"Oh, my--wished!" murmured Evelyn.
"You should have seen Phil," Lucile went on with her story. "I never saw anyone so dumbfounded. He stopped with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth and gaped at Dad as if he were some curiosity. I must have looked funny, too, for suddenly Dad began to laugh, and he laughed and he laughed till we thought he'd die."
"'You couldn't look more dumbfounded if I had ordered your execution,' he gasped when he could get his breath. 'Of course, I can always make arrangements for you to stay behind.'"
"Oh," breathed the girls in unison, "what did you say?"
"Say? You had better ask what didn't we say. We talked and talked and talked as fast as our tongues would go till after midnight, and we wouldn't have stopped then if mother hadn't shooed us off to bed. Oh, I don't think I was ever so happy in all my life!"
"But where do we come in?" insisted Jessie.
"Right here. You see, I had been so excited and everything, I hadn't realized what it would mean to leave you girls for the whole summer. I guess Dad saw there was something the matter, for, when I started upstairs, he drew me back and asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, 'Why not?' For a moment I thought he was joking--he's always doing that, you know--but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could have danced for joy."
"Don't blame you. I'd not only have felt like it; I'd have done it, too," said Evelyn.
"Yes, and scandalized the neighbors," Jessie sniffed.
"I fail to see how the neighbors would have known anything about it," retorted Evelyn, with dignity, "since they can't see through the walls."
"Oh, they don't have to see," said Jessie, witheringly. "Anybody within a mile of you can
hear you dance."
"See here, Jessie Sanderson, that's not fair," Lucile broke in. "Evelyn's one of the best little dancers I know, and I won't have her maligned."
"Have her what? I wish you'd speak United States, Lucy," said Jessie, plaintively.
"Don't talk and you won't show your ignorance." It was Evelyn's turn to be scornful.
"Well, what does it mean?" Jessie returned. "
You tell us."
"Some other time," said Evelyn, calmly. "You will have to excuse me now. I am so excited now that I really can't bring my mind down to trivial matters."
"I knew it," Jessie was declaiming tragically, when a clear whistle sounded from the foot of the hill and Lucile exclaimed:
"There's Phil; I wonder what he wants now."
The three girls made a pretty picture as they stood there gazing eagerly down the slope, Lucile with her vivid gypsy coloring and fair-haired, blue-eyed Jessie, exactly her opposite, yet, withal, her dearest and most loyal friend; and last, but not least, Evelyn, short and round and polly, with a happy disposition that won her friends wherever she went.
Although it is generally conceded that "three make a crowd," the rule was certainly wide of the mark in this case. The girls were bound by a tie even stronger than friendship, and that tie was the law of the camp-fire. The latter had taught them many brave lessons in the game of life, lessons in self-denial, in sympathy and loyalty, and they were ever anxious to prove that they had learned their lessons well.
Though, once in a while, besetting sins would crop out and Lucile would cry, despairingly, "Oh, why did I do it; I knew I shouldn't," and Jessie would stop, when plunging nobly through a box of candies, to cry penitently, "Oh, I've eaten too many," and Evelyn would often be tempted to read too long and neglect her work, still, on the whole, they were infinitely helped by the wholesome teaching and precepts of the campfire.
"Oh, he's got a letter," cried Lucile, as Phil took a flying leap into their midst.
"Say," said Phil, eyeing them pityingly, "don't you fellows know it's time to eat?"
"It's never dinner-time yet," said Jessie in dismay.
"Yes it is, too," Evelyn contradicted. "Just look where the sun is."
"Where is it?" cried Phil, and then, as his gaze wandered to the sky, he added, with an air of relief, "Oh, it's still there; how you frightened me!"
"Goose!" his sister commented, and then, looking at the envelope he still held in his hand, she added, "Who's the letter from? Be sensible and tell us about it."
"Oh, that?" said Phil. "That's a letter from Jim. Seems to be getting along first rate."
"What does he say?" asked Jessie, all interest.
Phil eyed her speculatively. "I tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll tell you about it on the way home."
The girls laughed and Lucile explained, "You see, he's never happy far from home and dinner."
"You seemed to get away with a mighty generous supply of oysters yourself the other night," Phil grumbled good-naturedly.
"Well, if I did, I was only obeying the camp-fire law, 'Be healthy,'" Lucile defended warmly.
The girls laughed and Jessie murmured something about, "That's right; keep 'em under."
"What's that?" Phil demanded, but Jessie evaded with another question:
"When are you going to tell us about Jim?"
"Here we are, half the way home, and you haven't even begun," Evelyn added.
"Well, he seems more than satisfied with his engineering, and most of his letter is taken up with praises of Mr. Wescott and his wife and how good they are to him. He says the luck he's had almost makes him believe in fate."
"Well, there certainly did seem to be a fate in the way young Mr. Wescott just happened up to camp in the nick of time to find our guardian and fall in love with her, worse luck," and Lucile vindictively kicked a stone from the path as though it were the meddling Mr. Wescott himself. "And then to think he should like Jim, a poor little country boy, well enough to take him along with him to the city, where he could make something of himself."
"Well, all I have to say is that there's no one I'd rather see get along than Jim. I liked him the first minute I saw him, and he sure does improve on acquaintance--the longer you know him, the more you like him. He deserves everything he gets," and Phil's face glowed with boyish enthusiasm.
"That's the way we all felt," said Lucile with equal earnestness, while Evelyn could not repress a chuckle at the memory of their first meeting with Jim. "Has he anything else to say?"
"Only one thing," answered Phil, mysteriously.
"What is it?" the girls demanded in chorus.
"Hurry up, please, Phil," Jessie pleaded.
"Certainly, anything for you," Phil returned gallantly. "Why, he just states that Mr. and Mrs. Wescott----"
"Miss Howland!" cried Evelyn.
"Miss Howland that was," corrected Phil; "Mrs. Wescott that is."
"What difference does it make?" cried Lucile, impatiently. "What about her--is she sick?"
At the suggestion the girls grew pale.
"Not quite as bad as that," teased Phil, enjoying the sensation his news was making and bent on prolonging it to the last extreme.
"Not quite? Oh, Phil, what do you mean?" cried Jessie, imploringly.
Anxiety and alarm showed so plainly on the girls' white faces that Phil suddenly relented.
"Don't get scared," he continued, elegantly. "Your guardian isn't sick. If she were, I guess she wouldn't be making plans for visiting Burleigh."
"Is that the truth?" Lucile demanded, seizing her brother's arm. "Don't play any more tricks, Phil," she pleaded. "It means an awful lot to us, you know, if Miss--Mrs. Wescott is coming."
"Oh, that's on the level all right," Phil answered with evident sincerity. "She just made up her mind a little while ago and Jim thinks she will probably write to you girls about it."
"Oh, just think, we are really going to see her again after six months," Jessie exclaimed, joyfully.
"And we'll give her a reception she will never forget," Lucile decided.
"All right; I'm with you," Phil shouted, and was off to join a crowd of the fellows on the other side of the street.
"Don't forget we eat soon," Lucile called after him.
"Such a chance," he flung back. "Bet I'll be there before you will."
"He thinks we're going to talk for another couple of hours," Jessie interpreted.
"No, we'd better do our talking to-morrow. Tell you what we'll do--I have--an idea," cried Lucile.
"Bright child, tell us about it," said Evelyn.
"Suppose we call a special camp-fire meeting to-morrow morning to talk over plans for Miss Howland's--I mean Mrs. Wescott's reception."
"Fine--but who will let them know?"
"Come over to-night, both of you, and we can 'phone them from here."
"All right, we'll do that, Lucy," agreed Evelyn. "We'll see you about eight o'clock, then."
"Better run, Lucy," warned Jessie, with a backward glance over her shoulder. "Phil will beat you in if you don't hurry--he's coming full tilt."
"All right, I'll see you to-night," said Lucile, as she made a dash for the house.
She stopped for a moment on the doorstep to flash them a merry glance and cry triumphantly, "I won!"
"But not by much," claimed Phil, taking the steps two at a time.
As they turned away, Jessie sent one parting shot over her shoulder:
"A miss is as good as a mile," she gibed. _