Nathalie gave a gasp of relief. Oh, it was good to be rid of that horrible black handkerchief! Then her blinders faded into the past as she became aware of the eyes that were gazing into hers, blue ones with violet shadows, fringed by long black lashes!

The eyes were set in the face of a girl about fourteen, that had, notwithstanding the pain-tired mouth with its lines of petulance, a winsome sweetness about it which partly atoned for a jagged crimson scar running across one end of the forehead, partly hidden by short, curly hair which was boyishly parted on one side.

But the blue eyes were gleeful just at this moment, as if their owner was proud of her deftness in slipping off the handkerchief. She clapped her hands and cried, “Oh, aren’t you glad to get rid of that horrid black thing?”

Raising herself on her elbow she drew Nathalie’s face down to hers and whispered, “Don’t say a word to Mother, but it was all arranged—the doctor and I managed it—let Mother think it was an accident.” Before Nathalie could remonstrate the princess called out with a merry trill in her voice, “Oh, Mother! come quick, Miss Page’s blinders have fallen off!”

Nathalie flushed in embarrassed silence as she heard Mrs. Van Vorst’s step hurrying to the couch. O dear, what should she do? It certainly was awkward to have to deceive her. Oh, if the doctor would—but as she turned around to face the lady in question she saw that the doctor was not there.

“The doctor has gone, he had an important call to make,” spoke Mrs. Van Vorst hurriedly, as she came towards the girls and saw Nathalie’s look of distress. “But never mind, Miss Page, it is all right,” she cried reassuringly. “It was a shame to keep you muffled up like that—just for a whim—but if you could understand!” She looked down at Nathalie apologetically.

“I should say it was a whim,” broke in the princess, “and it just serves you right, too, for making her do it. Now Miss Page will go away and tell every one what a horrible-looking thing I am, and it will be all your fault because you are so afraid any one will see me, just as if I was a monster of some sort! Oh, Nathalie—can’t I call you Nathalie?—the doctor told me your name, and then you know you are not so much older than I am.”

“I’m sixteen,” answered Nathalie readily, glad to turn the conversation from the blinders, for she saw that Mrs. Van Vorst was greatly perturbed.

“Oh, Nita, don’t talk that way to Mother,” cried Mrs. Van Vorst in a pained voice. “You know, dear, I only did what I thought was right, and it was to save you, people talk so!”

“I don’t care if they do,” broke in Nita angrily. “I have as much right in this world as they have, even if I am ugly-looking with this scar and hump, they needn’t look at me!”

Nathalie started, for as the girl spoke she deliberately threw off a soft white shawl that had been thrown about her shoulders. With a sudden feeling of deep pity Nathalie recognized that the princess was a hump-back!

“Oh, you won’t hate me now, will you?” pleaded Nita suddenly, as she saw Nathalie’s start of surprise, “just because I’m humped like a camel.” She caught the girl’s hand in hers and clung to it with piteous appeal in her blue eyes.

“Oh, no,” returned shocked Nathalie. “Why, I think you are lovely, even if you are—” But the word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden impulse, stooped forward and kissed the red lips.

Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own boldness, two arms were flung around her neck and Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she thought she would smother. “Oh, I just love you!” said Nita’s stifled voice from her shoulder, “and I’m going to keep you with me all the time. Oh, Mother,” she wailed beseechingly, lifting her head, but still keeping Nathalie a prisoner, “won’t you buy her?”

“Buy her!” repeated her mother, who during this affectionate outburst had stood silently by, a pleased smile struggling with an expression of dismay at the girl’s rudeness. “Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be bought and sold.”

“Well, I wish she was then,” said the child, for she was but that, dropping her arms from Nathalie’s neck and lying back with sudden exhaustion.

“Oh, she is going to faint,” cried dismayed Nathalie, while the mother rushed to the dresser for the smelling salts. But when she attempted to hold the bottle to Nita’s nose, she pushed her mother’s hand away crying, “Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room; I want Nathalie to myself!”

And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray, who looked at her neighbors with a cold, formal stare of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went softly out of the room and closed the door after her in obedience to her daughter’s sharp cry, “Do you hear? Shut the door!”

Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she could not sit there another minute and hear the girl talk like that to her mother. “Oh, don’t speak to your mother like that, she is so good to you!” the girl’s voice trembled.

“How do you know she is good?” retorted Nita, after a short pause of surprise at this merited rebuke.

“Why—why—because her face shows it,” stammered Nathalie, “and then, why she is your mother, and if I should talk to my mother like that, why—I should expect her to die then and there.”

“Why?” persisted the voice.

“Because it would hurt her so,—” Nathalie labored, she hated to preach—“to think I could be so disrespectful to her, and ill-bred.”

“Well, your mother isn’t my mother; your mother didn’t shut you up in a dark room so that you tried to get away.”

“Nita!” came in a pain-stricken voice, “don’t talk that way!”

Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in the doorway, her face drawn and lined. “I was coming in to ask—oh, Miss Page, will you come in here a moment? I should like to speak to you.”

Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with pity for this poor mother who was only too surely paying the penalty of neglect and anger. “Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she cried hastily, “do not mind your daughter, she doesn’t mean to hurt you, she—I think she is just spoiled, you know.”

By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst into the adjoining room, a sun-parlor, whose glass windows looked down upon a terraced garden, green with trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers, surrounded by low rolling hillocks or mounds.

Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her displeasure in shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother, with set, rigid lips, closed the door softly, and then turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly, between deep-drawn breaths.

“Oh, I have been foolish—I am afraid—in letting you come to see Nita, but oh, it is so hard for her, shut up in this house, with only me and the servants. So when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But oh, Miss Page, do not, I beg of you, repeat what you have seen or heard, don’t mind what Nita says about me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she says.” The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst’s face.

“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” exclaimed Nathalie, tears misting in her eyes in sympathy with the lady’s grief, “I know how you feel, but it is all right. I think you are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of course, I know that your daughter does not mean what she says, she’s just spoiled.” A sudden thought came to the girl. “Don’t you think if you were to let her see people—that is girls of her own age—that she would be better? Oh, I am sure she would,” broke from the girl impetuously, “and it would make her so happy!”

“Do you really think so?” inquired Mrs. Van Vorst with a note of hope in her voice. “Would it not hurt her when people said rude things about her?”

“But no one would say rude things about her,” persisted Nathalie determinedly. “Every one would love her—she’s a dear, so sweet-looking—and then she would soon get over her spoiled ways; she would learn by seeing that other girls act differently.” Nathalie felt that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem such a shame!

“I don’t know about that,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst, her face hardening again to the same impenetrable mask that had puzzled Nathalie the first time she met her. “Well, we will not discuss it now—we’ll see how things turn out—only, Miss Page,” she grew stiff and formal, although a note in her voice betrayed that she was battling with her emotion, “I should like to ask you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell—how foolish I was—” she broke off suddenly, and then she added, “of course, you have a right to tell; but let me explain that what Nita says is not true, she likes to tease me into getting her way. Sit down—oh—she has fallen asleep.” Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door softly and then closed it. “She always does when she cries that way.”

“Yes, I have been foolish,” she reiterated, “but I am not a criminal, and it is not altogether pride, because I have a deformed child, that makes me keep her secluded. It is because I want to save her, I would give my life for her happiness, but I can’t—” there was a hopeless wail to her voice. “That is my punishment!” And then, as if reminded of what she wanted to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, “It is true that I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her—she has always had those temper spells—I never knew what to do with her. Some one told me I was too easy with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped crying I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried to get out, she said some one was chasing her, and climbed out on the shed and fell off the roof! She broke—her back!” Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face in her hands, but although no sounds came, Nathalie could see the convulsive shivers that shook her frame.

The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was awful! Oh, but if she didn’t say something she would be boo-hooing herself in a minute. “But that was not your fault,” she cried with sudden inspiration. “It was right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, I should consider it just an accident that you could not help.”

Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl with wide, appealing eyes. “Oh, do you think that? If I could be led to believe I was not to blame! For years I have suffered the tortures of hell, doing penance.”

“Yes, and making yourself and your daughter miserable!” Nathalie spoke boldly, she couldn’t help it, the words came of themselves as it seemed to her. “But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps I should not speak this way to you, for I am just a girl, but I feel so sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem such a shame to shut her off from all pleasure just because an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs. Morrow says we should regard trouble like clouds that we can’t blow away unless we fill the atmosphere with sunshine.” Nathalie came to a sudden stop, afraid she had gone beyond her depth. But in a moment she added, “Oh, if you would just think of it as an accident! Try to make Nita happy, and then you will be happy, and forget all about it!”

Mrs. Van Vorst’s eyes grew moist as she cried impulsively, “Oh, you are a dear girl to talk to me this way. I shall always remember it, always. Yes, you are right, I have been miserable and have been making my poor child so. Oh, I have been wrong!”

Before Nathalie could answer, Nita’s voice was heard shrilly crying, “Mother, I want Nathalie!”

“I am coming,” cried the girl, hurrying into the room and up to the couch. “Did you have a nice little nap?” she asked cheerily, as she patted the girl’s hand that lay inertly on the coverlid.

“Oh, I just dropped off, I always get so tired when I cry.”

“But why do you cry then?” questioned practical Nathalie.

“Why—oh, I cried because Mamma took you away from me, and now you will be going soon, and I won’t have had time to talk to you at all.”

“Oh, yes you will,” replied her companion, glancing at the clock. “It is only eleven, I sha’n’t go for another hour, so start right in and talk.”

“But I don’t want to talk,” came the contrary answer. “I want to hear you talk. Please tell me about the Girl Pioneers. Did you go on the wild-flower hike?”

“Oh, yes!” was the answer; and then Nathalie’s tongue flew as she told about the hike, the different things they did, how she had learned to blaze a trail, what a delightful companion Dr. Homer had proved, how she lighted the fire with only one match, about the Tike’s escapade, and the flower legends.

“Oh, but the fire, I must tell you about the fire and the bucket brigade!” she cried, and then followed that exciting story with all its climaxes, and what fun it had proved, although, as the girl confessed, she had been tempted to run away several times.

“I just wish I could have seen it all!” exclaimed Nita regretfully, as Nathalie paused for a rest. “I should have liked to go on that flower hike, and the flower legends, can’t you tell them to me? I just love flowers!”

“Why yes, perhaps I can,” nodded the Story Lady. And then in a moment she was animatedly telling about the Forget-me-not lover, the Dandelion legend, and then last of all about the spring goddess who brought the arbutus.

“What are you going to do next?” inquired her listener as Nathalie’s flower stories ended.

“We are all busy now getting up entertainments; that is, we are thinking up ideas for the Pioneer Stunts. You know, we are anxious to make money for our Camp Fund, and—”

“Camp Fund! what is that?” inquired the girl interestedly.

“Why, the Pioneers, that is the Bluebirds, the Bob Whites, and the Orioles, are going camping this summer, probably in August, or as soon as we can raise the money. There are sixteen Pioneers going. Oh, I am sure we shall have a dandy time! We are to sleep in tents, but there will be a house or something for the dining room and kitchen, that is, if we can get them.”

“Where are you going to get the tents to sleep in?”

“Helen and I are to make our own tent, Fred Tyson is going to help us. It will take an awfully long time, we are to begin next week. The other tents, well, some of the girls have their own and then we shall borrow one or two. Of course, you know, each girl will have to pay her expenses to camp and back, but all the other expenses are expected to come out of the Fund, so you see we shall have a lot of work to do. We are to charge admission to the Pioneer Stunts.” And then Nathalie told of the novel way they were to get ideas, and how each girl was to keep her idea a secret until after the vote had been taken as to the best Stunt the night of the performance.

“Have you got your idea yet?” inquired Nita eagerly. “Oh, I just bet your idea will be the best one of all!”

“Oh, no,” answered Nathalie modestly, “far from it! I am awfully worried for fear it will be a terrible failure.” And then she told how she had lost her idea and was writing up another one.

“Well, after you have the Stunts, what are you going to have?” demanded Nita eagerly.

“We want to have a flag drill, that is, if we can get the ground for it, as we want to have it in the open. Oh, it will be the loveliest thing! The girls are to be Daughters of Liberty and carry banners, the little flags used by the different States and soldiers before and during the revolution, before we had the Stars and Stripes. Oh, did I tell you that all of our entertainments have to be either colonial or patriotic, that is, something that happened in or belonged to the early days of the nation, when all the people were pioneers, or the children of pioneers?”

“When are you going to have the flag drill? Oh, how I should like to see it!”

“I have rattled on so fast I forgot to say that—why—we are not sure about that, for, you see, we have got to get a lawn, or grounds that would be suitable.” Her face reddened, for she suddenly remembered that it was Mrs. Van Vorst’s lawn that the girls had wanted, and that she had refused to let them have it.

“You see,” she explained awkwardly, “we want a place where the people can see us, and then we want to have booths decorated with our colors—they are Red, White, and Blue, you know—so we can sell ice-cream. Each table is to be named after one of the thirteen States; but there, I don’t believe we can have it.”

“Mamma, come here quick,” called Nita imperiously, sitting up and peering into the sun parlor where her mother was seated sewing, “I want you to hear about the Flag Drill, and oh, Mother, won’t you let me see it? Oh, please, Mother, I can go all muffled up, no one will see me,” pleaded the girlish voice pathetically.

Mrs. Van Vorst bent over and softly stroked the golden head as she cried, “Now dear, don’t get excited! Mother will do all she can for you.”

“You tell her about it!” broke from Nita hurriedly, as she pulled at Nathalie’s gown. Then falling back on the couch she exclaimed with determination, “But I’m going to see it, Mother, yes I am!”

Somewhat hesitatingly Nathalie began, but in a moment, perceiving that her listener was much interested, she launched forth and told about the Flag Drill in all its details.

“And you are going to use the money you make for your Camping Fund?” inquired Nita’s mother as Nathalie finished.

Nathalie nodded, “That is, if we can get the right place to hold it—oh—” she flushed again and then grew suddenly silent.

“Did not one of the Pioneers ask me if I would let them have my lawn in the rear of the house?”

Before embarrassed Nathalie could answer, Nita interposed excitedly, “Our lawn? Oh, let them have it, Mamma, let them have it, and then I can see it from the window, and no one will see me, oh, say yes, Mamma!”

Nathalie’s eyes looked dismay as she heard Nita’s wailing request. Of course Mrs. Van Vorst would refuse, but suppose she should think that she had urged Nita to ask her?

“Why, I suppose they could,” answered Mrs. Van Vorst slowly. “Then, as you say, you could see it from the window, Nita; yes the Pioneers can have it!”

“Oh, do you really mean it?” exclaimed Nathalie, almost as excited as Nita. “The girls will be just crazy with joy—and—oh, isn’t it funny? I was one of a committee of three to find a place, and—”

“Well, you will not have to look any further,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst. “If my lawn suits, take it, child. I am sure I am only too glad to do anything for the brave girl who has been so kind to my Nita as to come here and make her happy.”

“That is lovely of you,” rejoined the Pioneer, her eyes glowing, “and can we have it this month, the fourteenth? That is Flag Day, you know, and we wanted to have it then.”

“Have it whenever you like, my dear. I will tell Peter to have the grass mowed, and if he can help you in any way in arranging the tables or anything, I shall be delighted to let you have his services.”

“Oh, that will be the delightfulest thing!” The girl’s face radiated sunshine. “It seems just too lovely to be true!”

But the surprise Nathalie held in store for the Pioneers was almost forgotten in the surprise that awaited her when after saying good-by to Nita, Mrs. Van Vorst met her at the foot of the staircase and asked if she would not come into the reception-room a minute.

“I wanted to speak to you on a little matter of business,” the lady explained somewhat hesitatingly. Nathalie, wondering what terrible thing she had done or said, followed her silently into the room, where she again spied her Chinese friend, the mandarin, grinning at her from the cabinet.

“I have been thinking it over, Miss Page—”

“O dear,” thought poor Nathalie, “she is going to change her mind about the drill!”

“And I wanted to know—of course this is a business proposition—” she paused. “You have given so much pleasure to Nita, I thought perhaps you might be willing to come regularly every day, say for a couple of hours.”

“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried relieved Nathalie, “that would be just fine! I should be only too glad, but you know, I have things to do for Mother, we haven’t any maid at present.”

“But would it not pay you to give up these things, or let some one else do them? It would only be two hours in the morning,” there was a persuasive note in her voice, “and of course I would pay you enough to make it worth your while, and oh, I would give anything to bring joy into—”

She stopped, for there was something in the girl’s wide opened eyes that made her hesitate.

“Oh, I would not like to take money just for talking to Nita—that would hardly be fair—” Nathalie floundered desperately, for something brought Dick and his operation to her mind, and she did want so badly to earn money. She caught her breath sharply, opened her mouth, and then said, “Why, I don’t know, I will see what Mother says and let you know.”

“That will be just the thing,” was the reply. “You can drop me a note as soon as you decide, for Nita will be anxious, and then we will want to fix the days and times. If you can make up your mind to do this for me, Miss Page, I shall feel so indebted to you!”

As Nathalie flew post-haste towards home she heard the chug of an automobile and looked up in time to see Dr. Morrow sweep past in his car. But he, too, had eyes, and a moment later had backed his car and was asking Nathalie if she would like a ride home. The girl was only too pleased to accept, as she was fairly brimming over with impatience to tell some one her two surprises. They had not gone far before the story was out, and the doctor had heard everything.

“Well now, I call that luck,” declared the doctor, “and of course you said you would accept Mrs. Van Vorst’s offer?”

“Why, no,” answered the girl hesitatingly, “I should love to do it, but I don’t know that I ought to take money for it.”

“And why not?” queried Dr. Morrow with some surprise. “Isn’t money as much to you as to other people?”

“Oh, yes,” laughed honest Nathalie; “of course I would like the money, I am just dying to earn money for Dick.” The girl stopped with frightened eyes; oh, what was she going to tell? “But then it doesn’t seem exactly right to take money just for talking, and I don’t know how Mother would feel about it, she might feel badly.” Nathalie choked, and her eyes filled with tears as she remembered how hard it was for her mother to think of even Dick earning money when he was so helpless.

“You haven’t got to if you don’t want to, little Blue Robin,” declared her friend, who perhaps suspected how things were. “But I tell you what, friend Nathalie—” emphatically—“if I had a nice little voice like a certain Robin I know, with big brown eyes, and knew how to use those big eyes and that sweet little tru-al-lee of a voice by telling people stories, or talking to them—it’s all the same—well, I’d waste no time in accepting that offer. And then, too, see what pleasure it would bring Nita and her mother, too, for that matter. Of course, I’m a man and look at things from a commercial point of view; ah, here we are!” And then with a cheery farewell the doctor helped the girl out of the car and Nathalie walked slowly up the path.

To Nathalie’s surprise, her mother thought as the doctor did about the matter. She was not hurt at all, but overjoyed to think that Nathalie was clever enough to earn money that way.

“Why, Nathalie,” she mused, pleasantly, “you can do lots of things with the money you earn. It probably won’t be much, but it will give you pin-money, and a few necessities. Perhaps it will pay your way to camp!”

“Now, Mumsie,” laughed the girl with a trill of glee in her voice, “remember about counting your chicks before they’re hatched!”

She turned and ran swiftly up-stairs, and after imparting her good news to Dick, she sat down and penned her note to Mrs. Van Vorst, all her doubts and fears at rest. And she knew what she would do with the money, it came like a flash into her mind as she looked up and saw Dick plodding through an official-looking document.

After the note was mailed, there were just a few minutes left to run over and tell Mrs. Morrow what had transpired in regard to the lawn for the Flag Drill, and to announce, with joy shining in every feature, that they could have the drill on the fourteenth. Then came a few minutes at Helen’s, where the news was also told, two surprises, Nathalie declared, after she had unburdened herself to that young lady of the many things she had been bottling up for the last few weeks.

But Nathalie’s day of surprises was to bear more fruit, for about five o’clock the postman delivered a package by parcel post, a big box that had a very mysterious look about it. “I don’t see what it can be?” she soliloquized, as she looked at the address. And then, “Oh, Mother, do you know where the scissors are?” as she found that her fingers were too unsteady with haste to untie the string.

Dick, however, after hearing her excited outcry, had whipped out a penknife. There was a zip, the string was off, the box slipped out of the paper, and then the girl, with radiant, mystified eyes, was looking down at a Pioneer uniform, a jaunty little affair, with its red tie and red-banded hat to complete the outfit.

“Don’t stand there and gape at it any longer, Nathalie,” imperiously voiced Dick, with an odd gleam in his eyes. “Look at the card and see who sent it!”