Please, dear
Father in heaven, remember that I haven't any father to love me or to
teach me to be good; and though mamma does her best, please help her
to make something out of me if it can be done. Amen.'
'Truth,' said Mrs. Howard, when all was quiet about the camp, 'Elsie
wants to see you a moment before she goes to sleep. Will you go to
her tent, while I play a game of cribbage with Dr. Paul?'
Elsie looked like a blossom in all the beautiful greenness of her
tent, with her yellow head coming out from above the greens and
browns of the cretonne bed-cover for all the world like a daffodil
pushing its way up through the mould towards the spring sunshine.
'Aunt Truth,' she said softly, as Mrs. Winship sat down beside her,
'you remember that Dr. Paul hung my hammock in a new place to-day,
just behind the girls' sleeping-tent. Now I know that Polly is in
trouble, and that you are displeased with her. What I want to ask,
if I may, is, how much you know; for I overheard a great deal myself-
-enough to feel that Polly deserves a hearing.'
'I overheard nothing,' replied Mrs. Winship. 'All that I know Polly
herself confessed in Laura's presence. Polly told Laura, just as she
was going away, that everybody would be glad to see the last of her,
and that she had made everybody miserable from the beginning of her
visit. It was quite inexcusable, you know, dear, for one of my
guests to waylay another, just as she was leaving, and make such a
cruel speech.
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