Winona of the Camp Fire Part 8

"Oh, we'll go!" cried everybody at once.

"Then you'd better instruct the Secretary to write them to that effect,"

suggested Mrs. Bryan gravely, for the tumult seemed inclined to break out again.

Winona jumped up and put it in the form of a motion that the Secretary should reply, and actually induced the girls to second and ratify it.

"I'll write the acceptance right away!" declared Helen with enthusiasm.

She went into the next room, got paper and ink, came back, sat down in the middle of a ring of interested suggesters, and wrote a very pleased acceptance.

Winona, robbed of her usual confidante, turned to the girl on her other side, to talk clothes.

"I'm going to wear my blue organdy, with the Dresden sash and hair-ribbons," she said without looking to see to whom she was talking.

"Are you?" said the other girl, hesitating a little.

Winona looked at her, at the sound of her voice. She had thought she was speaking to Louise. But Louise was on the other side of the room, and the girl next her was Adelaide Hughes, one of the two girls Mrs. Bryan had brought into their Camp Fire.

It was two months now since Winona and Adelaide had begun to meet each other weekly at the Camp Fire good times and Ceremonials, but when you have all the bosom friends you want it is hard to see such a very great deal of other people. Winona realized now that she had scarcely exchanged two consecutive sentences with Adelaide all the time she had known her.

Adelaide was a thin, tired-looking girl of about thirteen, with big blue eyes and a sensitive mouth, and hair that had curious yellow and brown lights. She did not join very heartily, ever, in the frolics, but she seemed to enjoy everything with a sort of shy, watching intensity.

"And what are you going to wear?" Winona asked, more out of friendliness than curiosity.

Adelaide colored.

"I-I don't know," she said. "I-a white dress, I think."

"Voile?" asked Winona.

Adelaide shook her head.

"No, lawn-if I come. But maybe I won't be there."

"Why, what a shame!" said Winona with the bright friendliness that was a part of her. "Of course you must be there. Helen accepted for all of us."

"I know, but-but maybe I can't come," repeated Adelaide.

"Of course you can!" insisted Winona.

Adelaide's eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head.

Winona slipped one arm around her. The two girls were sitting a little apart from the rest by now, in a dusky corner.

"There's some reason why you think you can't, some horrid reason," she coaxed. "Now, just tell Winona what it is." She spoke as if she were petting her own younger sister, though Adelaide was only a year younger than she was.

Adelaide's eyes overflowed, and she felt gropingly for her handkerchief, to dry her eyes.

"Here's one," whispered Winona, slipping her own into Adelaide's hand.

"Now, tell me, dear. It isn't very bad, is it? Maybe I could help."

"You _can't!_" said Adelaide fiercely, "and I won't tell you a thing unless you promise not to."

"All right," said Winona cheerfully, "I promise."

"I-I haven't any party dress, and father can't afford to get me one,"

choked Adelaide, "and all I have is an old white lawn I wear afternoons, and it's _horrid_. And-and, Winona Merriam, if you offer to loan me a dress I'll never speak to you again!"

"I wasn't going to," comforted Winona, stroking poor sobbing Adelaide's shoulder, while her own quick, friendly mind cast about for a way out.

For Adelaide must come to the dance, and evidently she wouldn't borrow anything from anybody.

"Not borrow-how queer!" said Winona, voicing her thought. "Why, I don't know any of the girls I wouldn't borrow from, if I needed to, or they from me. Don't you ever borrow anything, Adelaide-except trouble?"

"No, I don't," said Adelaide chokily but proudly. "It's-it's different when you _have_ to!"

"I don't see why!" said sunny, friendly-hearted Winona, who always took it for granted that she liked people, and of course that they would like her! She had never known what it was to be rich, but never either what it was to be painfully poor. "Well, let's think of some other way. I suppose you haven't time to earn the money for a dress for this party.

Opeechee was telling us last week that we ought to try to earn so much money apiece, and that there were lots of ways for doing it."

"No, there wouldn't be time," answered Adelaide mournfully; but she stopped crying and began to look interested.

CHAPTER SIX

The two girls sat and thought hard for a moment; then Winnie suddenly thought of something.

"Just a minute, Adelaide!" she whispered, and she went over to the corner where Mrs. Bryan and Marie Hunter were discussing business together. The rest were still all talking dance excitedly by the fireplace.

"Opeechee," she said, "may I ask you something? Would there be any reason why the girls couldn't wear their ceremonial dresses to the dance?"

Mrs. Bryan thought for a moment.

"There's no actual reason why we shouldn't," she said. "Only the idea is that the dresses should be kept for rather intimate and private things."

"But it would be such a good idea if we wore them," insisted Winona eagerly. "You see, perhaps-perhaps some of us mightn't be able to afford new party dresses, and maybe we mightn't have any old good ones, either."

"Why, Winnie, you have that blue--" began Marie, and checked herself as she saw a light.

"Some of us mightn't have any new party dresses," repeated Winona obstinately, but with an appealing look at Mrs. Bryan. She did so hope she would understand! "Anyway, the boys expect us to," she went on eagerly. "Tom said this afternoon that we'd better get the dresses ready, only we didn't know then what he meant."

Mrs. Bryan looked at Winona's vivid, earnest face, and-understood.

"I think you are quite right, Ray of Light. I'll speak to the girls."

She stood up and struck lightly on the little Indian drum to call the girls' attention.