servants and alone a great part of the time when her father was away?
Her brother Frank, who was several years older, seldom paid the least
attention to her. If the little girl did enjoy the woods and the
companionship of the other girls and all the opportunities that the camp
fire life offered her, so far she showed not the slightest sign. Her
one pleasure must have been her chance to haunt Polly O'Neill, for
although she did not seem particularly happy when she was with Polly,
certainly she never left her side unless she were compelled to do her
share of the camp work and only then when Polly insisted upon it.
Already Miss McMurtry felt that Sylvia might become difficult, but then
the child had had no training, and besides Miss McMurtry shared the
belief of almost all other persons that Sylvia was simply stupid.
Curiously enough Eleanor Meade now appeared to have been invited into
the first Woodford Camp Fire circle under a false impression. You see,
the girls at the high school where Eleanor was also a student considered
her a genius, and it is agreeable for a community to have one genius in
its midst. Eleanor did have talent for drawing, and besides she had a
number of characteristics which many persons associate with genius. She
was entirely careless of her other responsibilities, and, if she
happened to wish to paint, considered it entirely unreasonable that
anything or anybody should interfere with her desire. She was often in
the habit of forgetting engagements and at times there was a faraway
expression in her eyes, which may have come from having neglected to
wear her glasses, but which her friends believed due to the thrall of
some wonderful creative idea which might be presented to the world some
day in the form of a great picture. And Eleanor, being but human and
seventeen, had done her best to foster this belief. She would not dress
in modern fashions like the other girls; her parents had little money,
but Eleanor's mother was a clever needlewoman and her eldest daughter
always appeared in gowns made after exactly the same pattern and of some