"I wonder, Angel, if you had ever heard of my friend, Polly O'Neill,
before I mentioned her name to you?" Betty Ashton asked after a few
moments of silence between the two girls, when evidently Betty had been
puzzling over this same question.
Angel shook her head. "Never," she returned quietly.
Five months had passed since their first meeting and now the scene about
them was a very different one from the four bare walls of a hospital,
and the little French girl was almost as completely changed.
It was early spring in the New Hampshire hills and the child and young
woman were seated outside a cabin of logs with their eyes resting
sometimes on a small lake before them, again on a dark group of pine
trees, but more often on a sun-tipped hill ahead where the meadows
seemed to lie down in green homage at her feet.
Everywhere there were signs of the earth's eternal re-birth and
re-building. The grain showed only a tiny hint of its autumn harvest of
gold, but the grass, the flowers, the new leaves on the bushes and trees
were at their gayest and loveliest. Notwithstanding there was a breeze
cool enough to make warm clothes a necessity, and Betty wore a long dark
blue cloth cloak, while her companion, who was lying at full length in a
steamer chair, was covered with a heavy rug. Yet the girl's delicate
white hands were busily engaged in weaving long strands of
bright-colored straws together.
"Why did you think I had ever heard of your friend, Princess?" she
queried after a short pause.
[Illustration: "Why Did You Think I Had Ever Heard of Your Friend?"]
Keeping her finger in a volume of Tennyson's poems which she had been
supposed to be reading, the older girl gazed thoughtfully and yet almost
unseeingly into the dark eyes of her companion. "I don't know exactly,"
she replied thoughtfully, "only for some strange reason since our
earliest acquaintance you have always made me think of Polly. You don't
look like her, of course, though there is just a suggestion in your
expression now and then. Perhaps because you were so interested in her
when I began telling of our Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls. I don't
believe you would ever have been able to endure me you know, Angel dear,
if you had not liked hearing me talk of Polly; then think of what good
times we should both have missed!"
Across the little French girl's face a warm flush spread.
"It is like you to say 'we' should have missed," she replied softly.
"But I never hated you, you were always mistaken in believing that. From
the morning you first came to the hospital and ever afterwards I thought
you the prettiest person I had ever seen in my life and one of the
sweetest. It was only that in those early days I was too miserable to
speak to any one. Always I was afraid I should break down if I tried to
talk, so when the other girls attempted being nice to me I pretended I
was sullen and hateful when in reality I was a coward. It was just the
same when you started the 'Shut-In Camp Fire' among the girls. I would
not join, I would not take the slightest interest in the beginning for
much the same reason. But you were always so patient and agreeable to me
and so was Miss Mollie. Then there was always Cricket!" Smiling, she
paused for a moment listening.
Inside Sunrise cabin both girls could hear the noise of several persons
moving about as though deeply engaged in some important business.
"I suppose I ought to go in and help," Betty remarked in a slightly
conscience-smitten tone, "but Mollie does so enjoy fussing about getting
things ready. And in spite of all my efforts and stern Camp Fire
training I shall never be so good a cook as she is. Besides, both Mollie
and Cricket informed me politely, after I finished cleaning our rooms
and had set the luncheon table, that I was somewhat in the way. I
suppose I had best go in, though. Is there anything I can do for you
first, Angel? Cricket is beating that cake batter so hard it sounds like
a drum."
Betty had half risen from her chair when the expression in her
companion's face made her sit down again. "What is it?" she asked.
For a moment the other girl's fingers ceased their busy weaving. "You
have never asked me anything about myself, Princess, in spite of all the
wonderful things you have done for me," she began. "I don't want to bore
you, but I should like----"
With a low laugh Betty suddenly hunched her chair forward until it was
close up against the larger one.
"And I, I am perfectly dying to hear, you must know, you dear little
goose, to talk about boring me! Don't you know I am one of the most
curious members of my curious sex? I have not asked you questions
because I did not feel I had the right unless you wished to tell. But
possibly I asked that question about Polly O'Neill just to give you a
chance. Really I don't know."
In spite of this small confession, not for worlds would Betty Ashton
have allowed the sensitive little French girl to have learned another
reason for her questioning. It was odd and certainly unreasonable, yet
in all her recent kindness and care of Angelique she had continued to
feel that in some mysterious fashion her friend, Polly O'Neill, was
encouraging and aiding her. There was some one at work, assuredly,
though she had no shadow of right in believing it to be Polly. For
though she had confided in no one, the first anonymous letter in regard
to the ill girl had not been the last one. In truth there must have been
half a dozen in all, postmarked at different places and all of them
unsigned and yet showing a remarkably intimate knowledge of the growing
friendship between the two girls.
The first step had been natural and simple enough. For with her usual
enthusiasm after her visit to the hospital Betty had immediately set
about forming a Camp Fire. She had sent for all the literature she could
find on the subject, the club manual and songs. Then she and Mollie,
during her visit, and sometimes Meg, had taught the new club members as
much as possible of what they had themselves learned during the old days
at Sunrise Hill.
For the first few meetings of the club in the great, sunny hospital room
there was one solitary girl who would not show the least interest in the
new and delightful proceedings. Indeed she kept on with her stupid
gazing up toward the ceiling as if she were both deaf and blind.
However, one day when she believed no one looking and while the other
girls were talking of their future aims and ambitions and of the ways in
which their new club might help them, unexpectedly Betty Ashton had
caught sight of Angelique, with her dark eyes fixed almost despairingly
upon her.
The other girls were all busy, some of them sewing on their new
ceremonial Camp Fire costumes of khaki, others making bead bands or
working at basket weaving. In the meanwhile they were talking of Camp
Fire honors to be won in the future and of the new names which they
might hope to attain.
Therefore, almost unnoticed by any one else, Betty was able to cross
over to the side of the French girl's bed.
"I was wondering if I could not also do some of that pretty work with my
hands," the girl began at once, speaking as composedly as if she had
been talking to Betty every day since their first meeting, although this
was only the second time that she had ever voluntarily addressed a word
to her.
Without commenting or appearing surprised, Betty brought over to her
bedside a quantity of bright straw and straightaway commenced showing
the girl the first principles of the art of basket-weaving which she had
learned in the Sunrise Camp Fire. Very little instruction was necessary;
for, before the first lesson was over, the pupil had learned almost as
much as her teacher. Indeed the French girl's skill with her hands was
an amazement to everybody. With her third effort and without assistance,
Angel manufactured so charming a basket that Betty bore it home in
triumph to show to her brother and sister. Then quite by accident the
basket was left in Esther's sitting room, where a visitor, seeing it and
hearing the story of its weaving, asked permission to purchase it.
After some discussion, and fearful of how the girl might receive the
offer, Betty finally summoned courage to tell Angelique. Thus
unexpectedly Betty came upon one of the secrets of her new friend's
nature. Angel had an inordinate, a passionate desire for making money.
She was older than any one had imagined her, between fourteen and
fifteen. Now her hands were no longer clenched on her coverlid nor did
her eyes turn resolutely to gaze at nothingness. Propped up on her
pillows, her white fingers were ever busy at dozens of tasks. Betty had
found a place in Boston where her baskets were sold almost as fast as
she could make them. Then Angelique knew quite amazing things about
sewing, so that Esther sent her several tiny white frocks to be
delicately embroidered, and always the other girls at the hospital were
asking her aid and advice.
Quite astonishing the doctors considered the girl's rapid improvement.
Perhaps no one had told them the secret, for she now had an interest in
life and a chance not to be always useless. Was it curious that she no
longer disliked Betty Ashton and that she soon became the leading spirit
in the new Camp Fire?
Afterwards the Wohelo candles were placed on a small table near Angel's
bed while the girls formed their group about her.
Then one day in early April the Princess had whispered something in
Angel's ear. It was only a hope or at best a plan, yet, after all, Betty
Ashton was a kind of fairy godmother to whom all impossible things were
possible.
For Sunrise cabin was undoubtedly open once again with four girls as its
occupants--Betty Ashton and Mollie O'Neill, Cricket and "The Angel."
"I am afraid you won't find my story as interesting as you would like it
to be," Angel said after a moment. "And perhaps it may prejudice you
against me. I don't believe Americans think of these things as French
people do. But my father was a ballet master and ever since I was the
tiniest little girl I had been taught to dance and dance, almost to do
nothing else. You see I was to be a premiere danseuse some day," Angel
continued quite simply and calmly, scarcely noticing that Betty's face
had paled through sympathy and that she was biting her lips and
resolutely turning away her eyes from the fragile figure stretched out
in the long steamer chair.
"I was born in Paris, but when I was only a few years old my father came
to New York and was one of the assistant ballet masters at your great
opera house. Ten years later, I think it must have been, I was trying a
very difficult dance and in some way I had a fall. I did not know it was
very bad, we paid no attention to it, then this came." The little French
girl shrugged her shoulders. "My father died soon after and mother tried
taking care of us both. She did sewing at the theaters and anything else
she could. She wasn't very successful. One day a chance came for me to
have special treatment in Boston. I was sent there and mother got some
other work to do. I have only seen her once in months and months. But
you can understand now why I am so anxious to make money. I was afraid
perhaps you would not. I don't want to be a burden on mother always and
now I think perhaps I need not be."
Angel spoke with entire cheerfulness and decision. It did not seem even
to have occurred to her that she had been telling her friend an
amazingly tragic little history. Nor did Betty Ashton wish her to
realize how deeply affected she was by it. So, jumping up with rather an
affectation of hurry and surprise, she kissed her companion lightly on
the cheek.
"Thank you a thousand times for confiding in me, dear, and please don't
be hopeless about never getting well. See how much you have improved!
But there comes the first of our guests to lunch, a whole half hour too
soon. But as long as Billy Webster promised to bring us the mail from
Woodford I suppose I must forgive him. Anyhow I must try to keep him
from worrying Mollie. She would be dreadfully bored to have him see her
before she is dressed." Betty walked away for a few steps and then came
back again.
"You will never understand perhaps, Angel, how much my learning to know
you this winter has done for me. I was dreadfully unhappy over something
myself, and perhaps I am still, but coming to visit you in Boston and
then our being together down here has cheered me immensely. I know you
are a great deal younger than I am, but if Polly O'Neill never writes me
again or wishes to have anything more to do with me, perhaps some day
you may be willing to be my very, very intimate friend. You see I have
not had even a single line from Polly in months and months and I can't
even guess what on earth has become of her."