Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp.

by Alice B. Emerson.

CHAPTER I

THE ORANGE SILK OVER-BLOUSE

"This doesn't look like the street I came up through!" exclaimed Betty Gordon. "These funny streets, with their dear old-fashioned houses, all seem, so much alike! And if there are any names stuck up at the corners they must hide around behind the post when I come by like squirrels in the woods.

"I declare, there is a queer little shop stuck right in there between two of those refined-looking, if poverty-stricken, boarding-houses. Dear me!

how many come-down-in-the-world families have to take 'paying guests' to help out. Not like the Peabodys, but really needy people. What is it Bobby calls 'em? 'P.G.s'--'paying guests.'

"I was a paying guest at Bramble Farm," ruminated Betty, still staring at the little shop and the houses that flanked it on either side. "And I certainly had a hard time there. Bobby says that these people in Georgetown are the remains of Southern aristocracy that were cast up on this beach as long ago as the Civil War. Unlike the castaways on cannibal islands that we read about, Bobby says these castaways live off the 'P.G.s'--and that's what Joseph Peabody tried to do! He tried to live off me. There! I knew he was a cannibal.

"Oh! Isn't that sweet?"

Her sudden cry had no reference to the army of boarding-house keepers in the neighborhood, nor to any signpost that pointed the way back to the little square where the soldiers' monument stood and where Betty was to meet Carter, the Littells' chauffeur, and the big limousine. For she was still staring at the window of the little shop.

"What a lovely orange color! And that starburst pattern on the front! It's lovely! What a surprising thing to see in a little neighborhood store like this. I'm going to buy it if it fits me and I've money enough left in my purse."

Impetuous as usual, Betty Gordon marched at once to the door of the little side-street shop. The most famous of such neighborhood shops, as described by Hawthorne, Betty knew all about. She had studied it in her English readings at Shadyside only the previous term. But there was no Gingerbread Man in this shop window!

In the middle of the display window, which was divided into four not very large panes, was arranged on a cross of bright metal a knitted over-blouse of the very newest burnt orange shade. The work was exquisitely done, as Betty could see even from outside the shop, and she did hope it would fit her.

On pushing open the door a silvery bell--not an annoying, jangling bell--played a very lively tune to attract the attention of a girl who sat at the back of the shop, her head bent close above the work on which she was engaged. Although the bell stopped quivering when Betty closed the door, the girl did not look up from her work.

Sharp-eyed Betty saw that the stranger was knitting, and she seemed to be engaged upon another over-blouse like that in the window, save that the silk in her lap was of a pretty dark blue shade. Betty saw her full, red lips move placidly. The girl was counting over her work and she actually was so deeply immersed in the knitting that she had not heard the bell or realized that a possible customer had entered.

"Ahem!" coughed Betty.

"And that's twenty-four, and--cross--and two--and four----" The girl was counting aloud.

"Why," murmured Betty Gordon, her eyes dancing, "she's like Libbie Littell when she is somnambulating--I guess that is the right word.

Anyway, when Libbie walks in her sleep she talks just like that----

"_Ahem!_"

This time Betty almost shouted the announcement of her presence in the shop and finally startled the other girl out of her abstraction. The latter looked up, winked her eyes very fast, and began to roll up her work in a clean towel. Betty noticed that her eyes were very blue and were shaded by dark lashes.

"I beg your pardon," said the shopgirl. "Have you been waiting long?" She came forward quickly and with an air of a.s.surance. Her look was not a happy one, however, and Betty wondered at her sadness. "What can I show you?" asked the shopgirl.

She was not much older than Betty herself, but she was more self-possessed and seemed much more experienced than even Betty, much as the latter had traveled and varied as her adventures had been during the previous year and a half. But now the stranger's questions brought Betty to a renewed comprehension of what she had actually entered the shop for.

"I'm just crazy about that blouse in the window--the orange one," she cried. "I know you must have made it yourself, for you are knitting another, I see, and that is going to be pretty, too. But I want this orange one--if it doesn't cost too much."

"The price is twelve dollars. I hope it is not too much," said the shopgirl timidly. "I sold one for all of that before I left Liverpool."

Betty was as much interested now in the other girl as she was in the orange silk over-blouse.

"Why!" she exclaimed, "you are English, aren't you? And you and your family can't long have been over here."

"I have been here only two months," said the girl quietly.

There was a certain dignity in her manner that impressed Betty. She had very dark, smoothly arranged hair and a beautiful complexion. She was plump and strongly made, and she walked gracefully. Betty had noted that fact when she came forward from the back of the shop.

"But you didn't come over from England all alone?" asked the curious young customer, neglecting the blouse for her interest in the girl who spread out its gossamer body for approval.

"It took only seven days from Liverpool to New York," said the other girl, looking at Betty steadily, still with that lack of animation in her face.

"I might have come alone; but it was better for me to travel with somebody, owing to the emigration laws of your country. I traveled as nursemaid to a family of Americans. But I separated from them in New York and came here."

"Oh!" Betty exclaimed, not meaning to be impertinent. "You had friends here in Georgetown?"

"I thought I had a relative in Washington. I had heard so. I failed to find her so--so I found this shop, kept by a woman who came from my county, and she gave me a chance to wait shop," said the English girl wearily.

"Mrs. Staples lets me knit these blouses to help out, for she cannot pay large wages. The trade isn't much, you see. This one, I am sure, will look lovely on you. I hope the price is not too much?"

"Not a bit, if it will fit me and I have that much money in my purse,"

replied Betty, who for a girl of her age had a good deal of money to spend quite as she pleased.

She opened her bag hastily and took out her purse. The purse was made of cut steel beads and, as Betty often said, "everything stuck to it!"

Something clung to it now as she drew it forth, but neither Betty nor the shopgirl saw the dangling twist of tissue paper.

"And I'll buy that other one you are knitting," Betty hurried to say as she shook the purse and dug into it for the silver as well as the bills she had left after her morning's shopping. "I know that pretty blue will just look dear on a friend of mine."

She was busy with her money, and the English girl looked on hopefully. So neither saw the twist of tissue paper fly off the dangling fringe of beads and land with a soft little "plump" on the floor by the counter.

"Dear me!" breathed the shopgirl, in reply to Betty's promise, "I shall like that. It will help a good bit--and everything so high in this country. A dollar, as you say, goes hardly anywhere! And this one will fit you beautifully. You can see yourself."

"Of course it will. Do it up at once," cried the excited Betty. "Here is the money. Twelve dollars. I was afraid I didn't have enough. And be sure and keep that blue one for my friend. Maybe she will come for it herself, so give me a card or something so she can find the place. Shall she ask for you?"

"If you please," and the English girl ran to write a card. She brought it back with the neatly made parcel of the over-blouse and slipped it into Betty Gordon's hand. The latter thanked her and looked swiftly at the name the other had written.

"Good-bye, Ida Bellethorne," she said, smiling. "What a fine name! I hope I can sell some more blouses for you. I'll try."

The shopgirl made a little bow and the silvery bell jangled again as Betty opened the door. Betty looked back at the English girl, and the latter looked after Betty. They were both interested, much interested, the one in the other, and for reasons that neither suspected. Ida Bellethorne was not much like the girls Betty knew. She seemed even more sedate than the seniors at Shadyside where Betty had attended school with the Littell girls since the term had opened in September.

Ida Bellethorne was not, however, in any such happy condition as the girls Betty Gordon knew. She might have told the warm-hearted customer who had bought the over-blouse a story that would indeed have spurred Betty's interest to an even greater degree. But the English girl was naturally of a secretive disposition, and she was among strangers.

She turned back into the store when Betty had gone and the door, swinging shut, set the bell above it jingling again. A door opened at the end of the room and a tall, aggressive woman in a long, straight, gingham frock strode into the room. She had very black, heavy brows that met over her nose and this, with the thick spectacles she wore, gave her a very stern expression.

"What's the matter with that bell, Ida?" she demanded, in a sharp voice.

"It seems to ring enough, but it doesn't ring any money into my cash-drawer as I can see."

"I sold my over-blouse out of the window, Mrs. Staples," said the girl.

"Humph! What else?"