The Round Table was toward the close of Kara’s stay in Westhaven. She was to sail early in May and must be back in New York for a week or more before the date set.
Without wavering, Kara still utterly declined to play any such fanciful rôle as a Knight of the Round Table. Notwithstanding Tory’s pleading, she would not come to the final meeting of the Round Table in any other costume than her Girl Scout one. She was keenly interested in the spectacle, however, and entreated the other Girl Scouts to allow her to see how they must have looked upon the Christmas Eve entertainment six months before.
The season made a difference in the decorations. No longer ornamented with pines and evergreens, the living-room of the House in the Woods was beautiful with spring flowers and shrubs.
Against the brown walls were branches of blossoming dogwood, long sprays of the fragrant, rose-pink trailing arbutus. On the mantel and tables were vases of white and purple lilacs and a single bowl of splendid crimson roses that had come to the House in the Woods with no card attached. The hostess understood, however, that they were a gift from Mr. Fenton.
To-night they stood in the center of the Round Table.
There was no raised dais, the Troop Captain insisting on having her place at the Round Table, which included Miss Frean.
Suspended from the rafters of the great room were the silver banners, no longer of unmarked silver cloth. Embroidered upon them in the chosen colors of the Knights were stories of their services during the past half year.
Edith Linder’s was the supreme achievement! No one of the Scouts in her Troop would have dreamed of disputing this fact.
To-night she wore the Golden Eaglet badge, the highest honor awarded a Scout. The single act of devotion on the part of one girl had afforded an example to the others. The sufferers from the great factory fire had received many kindnesses and attentions from the Girl Scouts Troop of the Eagle’s Wing. The little group of girls, members of a comparatively unknown organization in Westhaven a year and a half ago, were now accounted one of the chief factors for beauty and service in the village life.
Toward the close of this evening, Katherine Moore looked slowly from one face to the other of the friends surrounding her and then about the exquisite room, fragrant and shining with a wealth of green-and-white candles.