The beech woods were full of shadows and little shivery, sighing winds. A few seared leaves that had clung all winter to the otherwise bare branches rattled and shook like castanets. The younger beeches showed a few uncurling leaves and ripples of light along the gray-brown bark of their trunks.
On the ground under the trees were the first spring beauties and wild pale violets.
The girls had scattered into groups and were investigating the favorite haunts of the past summer.
Tory Drew led Miss Frean apart from the others and away from the woods toward the shore of the small lake. Above rose the three pine hills.
The girl shrugged her shoulders with a faintly nervous gesture.
“I don’t like the woods to-day for some reason, Memory; they are kind of ghosty and unfriendly. I like shining places filled with light and color.”
“You are too impressionable, Tory dear! I wish you would not always yield to your fancies.”
In response Tory smiled and dropped her head an instant against her companion’s shoulder with one of her favorite gestures of affection.
“It is nice to hear you scold. I was just telling Dorothy and Louise that you had ceased to care for me as you did in the beginning of our friendship. I have not enjoyed it.”
“You are mistaken, Tory. I care for you perhaps more than ever. Your winter has been more absorbed than you realize in your interest in the strange circumstances concerning Kara and in your concern over Lance McClain. Besides, I thought it best to realize I might be making a mistake if I should become too devoted to one Girl Scout who might any day go away to join her father and her friends and Westhaven see her no more.”
There was a gravity in her companion’s voice that startled the girl, who had been only half in earnest.
“Why, I am not going away, Memory! At least I have no idea of any such possibility! Father has said nothing of it. And in any case I should always come back to Westhaven. There is Uncle Richard and you and the Girl Scouts! Why did you make such a suggestion? Do you remember that when you presented me with my talisman you said I would learn to love Westhaven with all my heart and that no matter where I might be I would wander back now and then?”