And Rosa was getting thin! In this simple, easy, pleasant way—just long walks, daily. That meant rain or shine and “long” meant all the way to the village, clear down to the post office, two miles each way. At first Rosa objected; she found her feet untrained for such tramps, but Nancy knew and insisted.

“Why not try my cure?” she urged. “It’s not near as unpleasant as Orilla’s.”

“Very well,” Rosa would sigh. “But you better tip off the scales. If they don’t mark me low—”

“They will,” Nancy promised, and of course they always did.

Gar proposed tennis. Rosa had never before played—“good reason why,” she explained, but now she was anxious to try the splendid summer game.

224 “You look wonderful in your sport suit, Rosa,” Nancy encouraged, “and out on the courts—”

“All right. Anything once, but don’t expect me to fly up in the air after the ball, the way you do, Nance. I’m still something of a paper weight, you know.”

So tennis was tried, successfully.

“I know what was the matter with you, Rosa,” her cousin told her one afternoon after an especially enjoyable set with Paul and Gar, “you thought you were fat, and so you were self-conscious and miserable. Now you think you aren’t very fat, and you’re proud.”

“I think I’m not! I am not, am I Nancy? Tell me quickly! End this ‘crool’ suspense—” and Rosa performed a wonderful stunt with tennis racket and ball, actually “flying” off her feet in a really creditable manner.

She was so happy! No one who has always been free from such an insistent worry as Rosa’s had been, can actually understand the joy of hope that a few pounds less flesh can bring. The hand of that little white scale became225 a friend, an understanding friend, and every time it pointed to a figure Rosa held her breath.

But this did not solve the mystery built around Orilla. Rosa herself was as keenly interested in that as was Nancy, in spite of her rescue from any actual need of it. Bit by bit she confided in Nancy details of the queer bargain between her and Orilla. She had shared her allowance with her, who insisted she had a right to some of it anyway, and that she would not “make Rosa as thin as herself” if she didn’t pay well for it.

“But what has she done with the money?” Nancy asked, after that admission.

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Rosa, innocently. “You see, she had some big project in her mind and everything else she could get was supposed to go toward it.”

One evening when Nancy was seeking a little solitude along the lake front, there to read again her latest letter from her mother and the latest “funny page” from Ted, she226 was startled by someone calling her name in a hushed, whispering voice.

“Who is it?” she asked, although quite certain of whom it would prove to be.

“I, Orilla,” came the answer, as the girl stepped from behind the shrubbery into Nancy’s path.

“Oh, how you frightened me!” Nancy exclaimed. “I was so intent upon—my own thoughts. How are you, Orilla? We haven’t seen or heard of you in such a long time.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” replied the girl, who as usual wore the dingy suit of khaki, and a boy’s soft hat upon her thick red hair. “I’m glad I met you here. I want to ask a favor of you.”

“All right, Orilla,” said Nancy sincerely, “I shall be glad to help you if I can.”

“I believe you. You’re different. Maybe it’s because you’re poor—”

Nancy smiled broadly at this, but Orilla did not appear to notice it. She motioned to a rustic seat and they both sat down. Nancy was curious and a little anxious, for Orilla,227 while assuming friendship, still had that queer, furtive look in her eyes, and her face was surely unnaturally flushed.

“Have you been working too hard, Orilla?” Nancy asked kindly. “You aren’t strong and you shouldn’t—”

“I’m strong as an ox,” interrupted the girl. “That’s because I live out doors. I was sick once, and since I cured myself no one has interfered with my ways.”

This, thought Nancy, must be why Orilla’s mother allowed her to do as she pleased. But even so, she surely might have saved her daughter from wood chopping!

“Yes, I only go indoors at night—I steal in. No one knows where I go,” this meant much to Orilla, evidently. “But you’re my friend and we both have a secret, so that’s what I want to tell you.”

Nancy was so surprised she merely listened, not venturing to interrupt with a single word. Orilla kept locking and unlocking her fingers in a nervous way, and she fidgeted in her seat even more nervously.

228 As if the secret so long waited for was about to burst over Nancy’s head, like a cloud before a storm, she waited.

“Yes, I know I can trust you,” Orilla continued after a pause. “You’re what they call an idealist, aren’t you?”

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