_ CHAPTER IV. COUNTING THE HOURS
"You're right, Margaret," Lucile was saying. "I did call you all together just to speak of our guardian."
The girls leaned forward eagerly. "What about her?" they demanded.
"Oh, Lucy, don't keep us waiting," begged Marjorie. "Is she coming to Burleigh?"
"Not so fast," cried Lucile. "Give me half a chance. I haven't heard from our guardian personally, but Phil got a letter from Jim the other day and he said----" Lucile paused dramatically.
"Yes, yes; go on," they demanded, excitedly.
"And she said that Mr. and Mrs. Wescott were going to visit Burleigh very soon."
"Soon," cried Margaret. "That sounds good. Always before it's been something that was going to happen in the dim future."
"Did she say any special time, Lucy?" Ruth broke in, impatiently.
"No, there was nothing definite about it," said Lucile, "but I expect to hear from her almost any minute now."
"There comes the postman--perhaps he will bring you a letter," suggested Evelyn.
"Oh, what's the use of raising our hopes?" admonished Jessie. "There's just about one chance in a thousand that the letter will come when we want it."
"All we can do is wait," said Lucile, philosophically. "In the meantime, suppose we all suggest something that we can do to welcome her--make her feel how truly glad we are to see her. Somebody suggest something."
"For goodness' sake, Lucy," Marjorie exclaimed, "you might better have left me out of this. I'm no good at all when it comes to using any imagination."
"You have probably as much as any of us, and you can't get out of helping that way," said Lucile, decidedly.
"From things she has said, I should give her credit for a good deal of imagination," quoth Jessie, slyly.
"Oh, I'll get even for all those awful things you have said to me and about me, Jessie Sanderson," Marjorie threatened, good-naturedly. "I'd do it now, only I'm too busy trying to think up a plan."
"Good girl; keep it up," commended Lucile, and then, as she caught a murmured "That's just an excuse" from Jessie's direction, she cried, with a scarcely suppressed laugh, "Perhaps you would be doing a little more good in the world, Jessie, if you would follow her example."
"Bravo!" cried Evelyn. "That's one for you, Jessie," and promptly received a withering glance from that young lady, which said as plainly as words, "You just wait; there'll be a day of reckoning, and then----"
"Here comes the postman," cried Margaret. "Shall I take the mail, Lucy?"
"Please," she answered, and a moment later Margaret handed her half a dozen envelopes, while the girls looked on in eager silence.
"Is it there?" cried one of the girls, at last.
"Not yet," said Lucile, but as she turned over the last letter, she uttered a cry of amazement and delight that sent all the girls crowding about her.
"That is her handwriting," exclaimed Evelyn, and then there ensued such a babble of wonder and delight and excited speculation as to its contents that Lucile was finally obliged to shout, "If you will only sit down, girls. I'll see what's inside, and please stop making such an unearthly noise--we'll have the reserves out to quell the riot before we know it."
The girls laughed and distributed themselves about the porch, as many as could possibly get there crowding the rail on either side of Lucile, while they all listened with bated breath to what their guardian had to say.
"To Lucile and all my dear camp-fire girls," read Lucile. "I planned to come to Burleigh long ago, as you all know, and was bitterly disappointed when I was forced at the last minute to change my plans."
"So were we," said Evelyn, and was greeted by a chorus of impatient "sh-sh" as Lucile went on:
"But this time I am as sure as I can ever be of anything that my plans won't fall through. I expect to be in Burleigh by the twenty-fifth."
"Oh, think of it! That's day after to-morrow!" Margaret exclaimed, rapturously.
"That's what it is," Jessie agreed.
"Go on, Lucy; what more has she to say?" demanded another of the girls, and Lucile went on with her reading.
The rest of the letter contained descriptions of her travels and all she had seen, ending up with: "When I see my girls, I will tell you all I have been writing now, and a great deal more, and will expect to hear more fully than they have been able to write me all that has happened to them during the last six months. I am counting the hours till I see you all again. Good-by till then, dear girls. Your own loving guardian."
"That's all," Lucile finished. "Now we know when she's coming."
"Isn't she dear, and didn't the whole thing sound just like her?" cried Jessie.
"Exactly," agreed Evelyn, and then added, "If she is counting the hours till she sees us, I wonder what we'll be doing."
"We'll be making the hours count," said Lucile.
"Good for you, Lucy; that's what I call efficiency," cried Marjorie. "Make time work for us."
"Yes, but how are we going to do it?" said Ruth, distrustfully.
"I'll tell you," Lucile answered. "I thought that we ought to give our guardian a surprise when she comes. She hasn't been here for so long, and we ought to make it something she will remember."
"You've thought of something, Lucy; I can tell that," cried Jessie. "Suppose you let us know about it."
"Go ahead, Lucy--we'll let you think for all the rest of us," Marjorie suggested. "You can do it better, anyway."
"How very kind of you!" mocked Lucile. "I appreciate your generosity immensely."
"Go on; tell us your idea, Lucy," urged Margaret. "Never mind her."
"Well, it was only this, and if any one has anything better to offer, I'm only too glad to hear about it. I thought that you girls could all dress up in your ceremonial costumes. In the meantime, I'll have a fire made in the living-room fireplace and then I'll go to meet her."
"And leave us home?" Evelyn interrupted.
"Exactly," said Lucile, firmly. "As I said before, I'll go to meet her and bring her here. Then I'll take her upstairs to get her things off and tell her you girls will be here right away."
"And we're to be hidden in some other room, I suppose," Marjorie ventured.
"Uh-huh. Then I'll get her down into the living-room and make her comfortable in front of the fire----"
"Let us hope it's a cool day," Margaret interjected.
"We'll hope so," agreed Lucile. "We will have plenty of cool days yet, anyway, before spring sets in in earnest, and maybe the day after to-morrow will be one of them. I'll get her to sit there, even if it is warm."
"What then, Lucile?" asked one of the girls. "I have a feeling that the most interesting part is yet to come."
"It is," said Lucile. "You see, I'll be talking to her so hard that she won't notice what's going on around her much--that is, if you are careful. Then you come in, one by one, on your tip-toes and sit in a semicircle behind her."
"Oh, that will be a lark," cried Evelyn. "And are we to wait till she finds us out?"
"That's what I was going to tell you," said Lucile. "When you all get settled, I'll put my hand up to my hair like this, and then you begin to sing, very softly, 'Oh, fire----'"
"That will be splendid, Lucy; it will seem almost like old times," cried Margaret. "How did you manage to think it all out so beautifully?"
"Oh, it was simple enough," said Lucile. "The only thing is, do you all like it?"
Lucile was very well satisfied with the reception of her plan a moment later. The girls were enthusiastic and overwhelmed her with questions until she was obliged for the second time that morning, to say, "One at a time, please."
When, finally, all the arrangements were complete and satisfactory, one of the girls discovered it was after noon.
"Girls," exclaimed Evelyn, dismayed, "we've used up the whole morning just talking."
"Why, what time is it?" asked Margaret, feeling for her watch.
"It's twelve fifteen," announced Evelyn, impressively.
"Time I was going home," Marjorie declared, jumping up. "Where's my hat?"
"It's inside with Evelyn's," Lucile answered. "If I hadn't taken care of them there would have been nothing left resembling a hat. I'll get them," she added, and ran into the house.
In a moment she returned with a hat in each hand.
"What did you want to wear them for, anyway?" she said, as they started off. "You didn't really need them, and just think of all the work you made me."
"Oh, they just wanted to show them off," laughed Gertrude Church.
"Humph, we know why they pretend to criticize us, don't we Marjorie?" queried Evelyn, with a knowing wink.
"Sure; they're jealous," was the laconic reply, at which all the girls laughed scornfully.
"We'd have to have something better than that to be jealous of," scoffed one.
"Then we'll see you Monday, Lucy," called Jessie, as they started off down the street. "Maybe before," she added.
"I can stand it," laughed Lucile. "Come early Monday, anyway, all of you, and don't forget what I told you."
"We won't," they called; "don't worry!" And, indeed, she had no need for anxiety, for the thought that filled the girls' minds to the exclusion of everything else was:
"Our guardian is coming Monday--oh, why is it so far away?" _