their best advantage. Finally, after a lingering glance out the front
window, she picked up her last vase of flowers, a single branch of apple
blossoms in a tall, green jar, and, crossing over to the grand piano so
placed it that the sunlight shone full upon it. Then she stood for a
moment looking thoughtfully at the open keyboard, which had a small
sheet of music spread before it. Esther Clark next sat down at the
piano and lightly ran her fingers over the keys so that it could
scarcely have been possible for any one farther away than the adjoining
hall to have heard her playing. The refrain was simple and repeated
itself, yet had dramatic force and lingered in one's memory, the musical
call of the watchword for the Camp Fire Girls.

Only that morning Betty had asked Esther to try to teach this call to
her friends when they came together at her home that afternoon to form
their club, and though Esther was painfully shy she felt obliged to do
her best. Some few of Betty's friends were known to her through their
acquaintance at school, but into not one of their homes had she ever
been invited socially.

The door of the drawing-room farthest from the piano opened quietly.

"Betty," a young man's voice inquired reproachfully, "aren't you even
glad enough to see me to say hello? When before did I ever know you so
devoted to practicing that you wouldn't stop for any excuse, and yet
here I have come all the way home from Portsmouth on your account!"

Richard Ashton ceased talking abruptly, for instead of the pretty figure
of his sister, Betty, he now beheld rising from the piano stool a tall
girl with bright red hair, looking as though she had been frightened
speechless.