that self is forgotten.'"

Bessie Carroll drew a long breath as she looked about, and said
earnestly, "Miss Laura, I never, never saw any place so dear! I didn't
think there could be such a pretty room."

Laura bent and kissed the earnest little face. "I am glad you like it so
much, dear," she said. "I like it too. You remember the very first
words of our Camp Fire law--'Seek beauty'? I thought of that when I was
furnishing this. It is our Camp Fire room, girls, and I hope we shall
have many happy times together here."

"I guess they couldn't help being happy times in a room like this--and
with you," returned Bessie with her shy smile, which remark was promptly
approved by the other girls--except Olga, who said nothing.

"You look as glum as that old barn owl at the camp, Olga," Louise
Johnson told her under cover of the gay clamour of talk that followed.
"For heaven's sake, do cheer up a bit. That face of yours is enough to
curdle the milk of human kindness."

Olga's only response was a black scowl and a savage glance, at which
Louise retreated with a shrug of her shoulders and an exasperating wink
and giggle.

Within half an hour all the girls were there except Elizabeth. Olga,
glooming in a corner, thought of Elizabeth crawling off alone to her
room to cry. Torture would not have wrung tears from Olga's great black
eyes, and she would have seen them unmoved in the eyes of any other
girl; but Elizabeth--that was another thing. She glanced scornfully at
the others laughing and chattering around Miss Laura, and vowed that she
would never come to another of the meetings unless Elizabeth could come
too. If Miss Laura, after all her talk, couldn't do something to help
Elizabeth----But Miss Laura was standing before her now with a box of
matches in her hand.

"I want you to light our fire to-night, Olga," she said gently.
Ungraciously enough, Olga touched a match to the splinters of resinous
pine on the hearth, and as the fire flashed into brightness, Miss
Laura, turning out the electric lights, said, "I love the fire, but I
love the candles almost as much; so at our meetings here, we will have
both." The girls were standing now in a circle broken only by the fire.
Miss Laura set the three candlesticks with the bayberry candles on the
floor in the centre of the circle and motioned the girls to sit down.
Lightly they dropped to the floor, and Laura, touching a splinter to the
fire, handed it to Frances Chapin, a grav