Zara shuddered at the name.

"How I hate that Farmer Weeks!" she exclaimed.

Eleanor Mercer sighed and shook her head. She couldn't blame Zara for
hating the man, and yet, as she well knew, the spirit in the little
foreign girl that cherished hatred and ideas of revenge was bad--bad for
her. But how to eradicate it, and to make Zara feel more charitable,
was something that puzzled the Guardian mightily, was, as she foresaw,
likely to puzzle her still more. She left the two girls together, then,
to answer a call from outside the room.

"I don't exactly _like_ Farmer Weeks myself," said Bessie,
thoughtfully, when they were alone. "But what's the use of hating him,
Zara?"

"Why, Bessie! He made us run away from Hedgeville--he made me anyhow.
And if he'd had his way, he'd have taken me back, and had me bound over
to work for him just for board until I was twenty-one, if I hadn't
starved to death first. You know what a miser he is."

"Yes, that's true enough, Zara. But, after all, if it hadn't happened
that way, we'd never have met Miss Eleanor and the Camp Fire Girls,
would we? And you're not sorry for that, are you?"

Zara's face, which had grown hard, softened.

"No, indeed, Bessie! They're the nicest people I ever did know, except
you. But, even after we were with them, and had started to come to the