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TITLE: THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL
AUTHOR: MARGARET VANDERCOOK
EBOOK: E06525 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL

By Margaret Vandercook

First of a series

CHAPTER I

THE VOICE

Betty Ashton sighed until the leaves of the book she held in her hand
quivered, then she flung it face downward on the floor.

"Oh dear, I do wish some one would invent something new for girls!" she
exclaimed, although there was no one in the room to hear her.  "It seems
to me that all girls do nowadays is to imitate boys.  We play their
games, read their old books and even do their work, when all the time
girls are really wanting girl things.  I agree with King Solomon: 'The
thing that hath been, it is that which, shall be; and that which is done
is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.'
At least not for girls!"

Then with a laugh at her own pessimism, Betty, like Hamlet, having found
relief in soliloquy, jumped up from her chair and crossing her room
pressed the electric button near the fireplace until the noise of its
ringing reverberated through the big, quiet house.

"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered.  Do the
maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire?  I suppose
I could do it if I tried."

She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the
sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually
doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the
next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the glass of her
closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into her
own garden.

Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a
darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their
white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as
though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.

In spite of her petulance Betty laughed.  She was wearing a blue
dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet
ribbon of the same shade.  Her room was in blue, "Betty's Blue" as her
friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but
has soft shadows in it.

Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen.  She had gray eyes, a
short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an
effect of refinement that was almost disdain.  Her mouth was a little
discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though she
had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for
something.

"The outdoors is as dismal as I am, no wonder we used to be sun
worshipers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting; "but since
Prometheus stole the fire from heaven some ages ago, I really don't see
why I should have to freeze because the sun won't shine."

Frowning and gathering her dressing gown more closely about her with
another impatient gesture, Betty swept out into the hall.

The house was strangely silent for the middle of a week-day afternoon;
not a sound came either from below stairs or above, not the rattle of a
window blind nor the echo of a single pair of footsteps.

At some time has a sudden silence ever fallen upon you with a sense of
foreboding like the hour before a storm or the moment preceding some
unexpected news or change in your life?

Betty hurried toward the back-stairs.  She was leaning over the
banisters and had called once for one of the maids, when she ceased
abruptly, and stood still for several moments with her head tilted back
and her body tense with surprise.

So long as Betty could recall, there had been a vacant room in the rear
of the old Ashton homestead, which had stood for more than a hundred
years at the comer of Elm Street in Woodford, New Hampshire.  She was
stupider than other people about remembering the events of her childhood
and yet she was sure that this room had never been used for any purpose
save as a storehouse for old pieces of furniture, for discarded
pictures, for any odds and ends that found no other resting place about
the great house.  It was curious because the room was a particularly
attractive one, with big windows overlooking the back garden, but then
there was some story or other connected with it (old houses have old
memories) and this must have made it unpopular.  Betty did not know what
the story was and yet she had grown up with a queer, childish dread of
this room and rarely went into it unless she felt compelled.

Now, though she was not a coward, it did give her an uncanny sensation
to hear a low, humming sound proceeding from this supposedly empty room.

Cautiously Betty stole toward its closed door and quietly turned the
knob without making the least noise.  Then she looked in.

What transformation had taken place!  The room was a store place no
longer, for most of the old furniture and all the other rubbish had been
cleared away and what was left was arranged in a comfortable, living
fashion.  An old rug was spread out on the floor, a white iron bed stood
in one corner with an empty bookshelf above it.  There was a vase on a
table holding a branch of blossoming pussy willow, and seated before one
of the big, open windows was a strange girl whom Betty Ashton never
remembered to have seen before in her life.

The girl was sewing, but this was not what kept Betty silent.  She was
also singing a new and strangely beautiful song.

"Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame, 0 Master of the Hidden Fire; Wash
pure my heart, and cleanse for me My soul's desire."

Unconscious of the intruder and forgetful of everything else the
singer's voice rose clearer and sweeter with the second verse.

"In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, 0 Master of the Hidden Fire, That
when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul's desire."

Then in silence, as she leaned closer to the window to get a better
light on her sewing, an unexpected ray of sunshine managing at this
moment to break through the clouds fell directly on her bowed head.  Her
hair was not auburn, like Betty's, but bright, undeniable red.

"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you mind
telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you happen to
be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton inquired, coolly,
still keeping her position just outside the opened door.

The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown
embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood
with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously
twisting her big, rather coarse-looking hands.  She was a year older
than Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult
to imagine two persons more unlike.  Betty was slender but perfectly
proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which her
friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished ancestors,
while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet that seemed
too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin.  She too had gray eyes, but
while Betty's brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this girl's
were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her eyes.

In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across the
room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her unexpected
charm and dignity.

"Hasn't your mother told you of my coming? didn't she ask you if you
wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly.  "I am sorry; my name is
Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you.  Your mother has
asked me here to live, to take care of your clothes, to read to you, to
take walks when there is no one else--"

"Oh, you mean you are to be my maid," Betty finished, coming now into
the center of the room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes
suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.

"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to
me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to
whether I wished to be bothered with you."  Betty bit her lips, for she
did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was
unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.

The older girl's face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson.
"No, I am not to be your maid," she returned.  "At least Mrs. Ashton
said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in
any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for
studying.  Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I
hope to graduate. If you don't wish me to stay you will please explain
it to your mother, only--"  Esther tried to speak naturally, but her
voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least
until I can find some other place.  I am too old to go back to the
asylum."

"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed,
showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that
relieved her face of some of its former plainness.

"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don't be frightened," she
explained.  "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever
since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there
was nothing else to do with me.  But you need not feel specially sorry,
because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in
books.  Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been
going to school for years.  Only when your mother came last week and
said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of
wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of
all I wanted to know you.  You will think it strange of me, but I have
been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little
girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been
interested in you."

Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an
exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed.  "Oh, you will be sorry
enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably
think I am dreadfully spoiled.  But do please stay for a while if you
wish, at least until we find how we get on together."

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