think you
would let her almost trample upon you if she liked. Only Betty never
would like to hurt any one, thank heaven! But I am glad to hear you
are not going home for the Christmas holidays, because I am not going
either."

There was nothing so remarkable in this statement that it should make
Polly turn white and then red again. But fortunately the three Camp
Fire candles, "Work, Health and Love," were now flickering so that the
elder girl could not get a clear vision of the other's face.

But instead of appearing pleased over this news Esther seemed
disappointed. "I am so sorry, for Betty's sake," she returned. "She
wouldn't mind my not being with her so much if she only might have you."

Polly shrugged her thin shoulders in a fashion she had when vexed.

"O Esther, I think you might have been polite enough to say that you
would be glad to have me in town if you were to be here--particularly
when I came to ask you if I might spend the holidays with you."

"Spend the holidays with me?" Esther repeated in rather a stupid
fashion. Naturally she was puzzled as to just why a girl in Polly's
position should elect to spend her Christmas vacation in a cheap New
York boarding house with another girl for whom she had no special
sentiment.

"Why in the world do you want to remain in the city with me?" she asked
again, too honest to pretend that pleasure was her first sentiment
until she got a more definite understanding of the situation.

But Polly was now making no effort to devote her attention either to
eating or drinking. Instead she had rested both elbows on the table
and was looking at her companion with the half-pleading,
half-commanding expression that both Mollie and Betty knew so well.

"Promise not to say anything until I have finished?" she began
coaxingly. "For you see it is to explain why I want to stay with you
that made me write to ask you to make this engagement with me for this
afternoon."

CHAPTER VII

THE THREAT

"Then you refuse to help me or to keep my secret?" Polly O'Neill
protested indignantly. "Really, Esther, I never knew any one with such
a gift for considering herself her sister's keeper. We belong to the
same Camp Fire Club. And if that means anything I thought it was
loyalty and service toward one another.

"'As fagots are brought from the forest
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Wherever, whenever you