"
Betty banged the lid back on her box.
"Oh," she replied unsteadily. "I am sorry you feel about me in that
way. I didn't mean to be a mischief maker, but you need not worry about
Esther, for she is not the kind that falls from grace."
She sat a few moments longer leaning her chin on her hand and looking
toward the grove of pine trees where the shadows were now growing longer
and darker as the afternoon lengthened. Sorry to have fallen from grace
herself, Betty at this moment would have perished rather than confess
it.
The other three girls had gone straight on up to the tents, Meg taking
"Little Brother" with her. But now Eleanor appeared at the opening
before their kitchen tent and began vigorously ringing a large dinner
bell.
"Betty Ashton," she called, "it is half-past five o'clock and time to
begin dinner. You know it is your turn to help with Juliet and me. Meg
is putting the baby to bed."
Betty encircled her hand above her lips forming a small trumpet. "I am
not going to help with dinner to-night, I am too dead tired," she
halloed back. "I will help to-morrow instead."
"To-morrow?" Eleanor cried indignantly. "What has to-morrow, got to do
with it? You are no more tired than the rest of us and besides it is
your turn to-night and we have promised not to try to get out of things
unless we are ill.
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