“A wish in which they would scarcely concur, Polly. One wants the life adventure whatever it may be. Besides, our Camp Fire builds for the future as well as for the present.” Having reached the veranda, Bettina Graham, hearing the voices outside, came to open the front door; wearing a heavy blue flannel wrapper over her blue pajamas, her bare feet were thrust into blue slippers and around her small head her hair was closely bound in yellow braids. “I have been waiting to say good-night. Of course I realized that any truants would be you and Tante, mother.” “Bettina,” her mother replied irrelevantly, “you should have been called Diana; your own name has never suited you in the least and it was absurd that you should have been named for me when you are so unlike me. Since I have been watching you here in these woods——” Bettina and Mrs. Burton laughed and even Aunt Patricia smiled grimly. “Is it my present costume which recalls the famous huntress, mother, or is it that the woods are making you romantic? Please remember that I do not enjoy being reminded that I am wholly unlike my beautiful mother. I too have wished for auburn hair—wine colored our young poet called it to-night, did he not?—and eyes like——?” “Go to bed, Bettina. There is nothing of the goddess about you in manner or behavior at this moment.” Mrs. Graham’s tone was half amused and half annoyed. “Nevertheless, you will receive the poems in the morning. Gill and I really rescued the poet and deserve the attention,” Bettina answered, as she ran away to bed, tall and slim, with a peculiar grace of movement which ever had been characteristic of her. CHAPTER IV The Hermit In the return of the Camp Fire girls to their own country there was one of the girls who was unreservedly glad. Not one word of regret, not an instant of repining for foreign lands, or scenes or friends, and this girl was Sally Ashton, notwithstanding the fact that Sally actually had been through more entertaining experiences than the other girls. However, these experiences had made but slight spiritual impression upon her, for Sally was a matter-of-fact and not an emotional person. She had nursed Lieutenant Fleury under curious circumstances in the story called “The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor”, but neither then nor afterwards had the young French lieutenant’s gratitude and affection for her wakened more than a friendly response. The same result followed her acquaintance with the young Englishman in “The Camp Fire Girls in Merrie England.” Calmly Sally had announced in both instances that her own affection was indissolubly bound up with her own country and that her one desire was to return to the United States and to spend the rest of her life there.