She wished
again with all her heart that she had never come to Vermont. She
didn't belong here; why couldn't she have stayed where she did belong,
where people understood her, and she them?

A great wave of homesickness swept over the girl, homesickness for the
world as she had always known it, her world as it had been before the
war warped and twisted and spoiled things. And yet, oddly enough,
there was no sense in the Cameron house of anything being spoiled.
They talked of Ted Gordon in the same unbated tone of voice in which
they spoke of her cousin Bob or of his friend Pete Fearing, and they
actually laughed when they told stories about him. Laura baked and
brewed, and the results disappeared down the road in the direction
Mother Jess had taken. Aunt Jessica herself returned, a trifle pale
and tired-looking, but smiling as usual.

"Lucinda and Harriet are just as brave as you would expect them to
be," Elliott heard her tell Father Bob. "No one knows yet how it
happened. They hope to learn more from Ted's friends. Two of the
aviators are coming up. Harriet told me they rather look for them
to-morrow night."

Hastily Elliott betook herself out of hearing. She wanted to get
beyond sight and sound of any reference to what had happened. It was
the only way known to her to escape the disagreeable--to turn her back
on it and run away. What she didn't see and think about, so far as she
was concerned, wasn't there. Hitherto the method had worked very well.
What disquieted her now was a dull, persistent fear that it wasn't
going to work much longer.

So when Bruce remarked the next day, "I'm going to take part of the
afternoon off and go for ferns; want to come?" she answered promptly,
"Yes, indeed," though privately she thought him crazy. Ferns, on a
perfectly good working-day? But when they were fairly started, she
found she hadn't escaped, after all. Instead, she had run right into
the thing, so to speak.

"We want to make the church look pretty," Bruce said, as they tramped
along. "And I happen to know where some beauties grow, maidenhair and
the rarer sorts. It isn't everybody I'd dare to take along."

"Is that so?" queried the girl. She wondered why.

"Things have a way of disappearing in the woods, unless they're treated
right. Took a fellow with me once when I went for pink-and-white
lady's-slippers, the big ones--they're beauties. He was crazy to go, and
he promised to keep the place to himself. You could h