the brown eyes as she continued on her way. She had almost reached the top of the hill when she saw a large brown card on the walk. Picking it up she read, “Westport Library,” and then the written name, “Elizabeth Van Vorst.” Not a great loss, to be sure, but likely to cause inconvenience.

“Oh, I wonder if that lady didn’t drop it, she had a book under her arm,” flashed into the girl’s mind. She hesitated—she did not want to climb that long hill again—but the next second she had whirled about and was running lightly down the slope in the direction of a Carnegie building that glimmered picturesquely between green-boughed trees.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” panted Nathalie as she held out the card to the gray lady who had just emerged from the library and was looking vexedly about on the walk in front of the building, “did you not lose your library card?”

The lady turned sharply, stared suspiciously at the girl a moment, and then, as her eyes fell upon the extended card, exclaimed coldly, “Oh, did you find it? Thank you, I am much obliged!” With a haughty glance of dismissal she turned and ascended the library steps.

Nathalie’s eyes gleamed angrily, but with a toss of her head she was off on her second trudge up the slope. “Well, she is the limit—” she muttered. “Of all hateful, disagreeable, peculiar, mysterious creatures, she takes first rank.” But when the girl reached the woods where the new-gowned trees and the white blossoms of the dogwood, which she had spied the day before, riding in a trolley car, rustled softly in the sunlight, as if in a spring greeting to the flower-seeker, the unpleasant incident was forgotten.

With eager eyes and cheeks aglow she began to break off a sprig here and there, lingering only to caress the snowy petals that tantalizingly brushed her cheek.

“What a beauty!” she exclaimed as she suddenly halted; “it will be just the spray to sketch.” Up went her arm—a little higher—and then something went from under her; she tried to regain her footing, but slipped again on the moist turf. She felt her foot turn, and then came a sharp twinge that whitened her lips as she dropped, a helpless heap, on the ground.

For a few moments the girl forgot her dogwood blossoms, the slip, and the pain, and then she opened her eyes to realize, with a pang of dismay, that she must have fainted. Oh, she must have twisted her ankle, for when she tried to stand she almost screamed with the knife-like twinges.

She leaned her head against the tree with closed eyes, trying to think, but her thoughts seemed to run around in a circle, for she could see no way out of her dilemma. She was too far from the trolley line to hail a car, or to beckon to any passer-by who might be on the road.

She thought ruefully of how worried her mother would be if she did not return before dark. And who was there to look for her? Dick was helpless with his crutch, Dorothy would not be home until late, and Lucille—well, whoever heard of Lucille ever doing anything for any one but herself?

She screamed, but when her voice rang out with reverberating shrillness she clapped her hands to her ears. She would sing; and her fresh young voice broke forth into ragtime song.

But the ragtime quivered pathetically into a half-wail. What should she do? At last in sheer desperation she began to sing hymns; but they sounded so doleful in her nervous state that she desisted with a sound that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was about to embrace resignation to fate when she caught the glimmer of a brown skirt between the low-hung branches of the trees near by. In a moment there was a sharp crack of a twig, and Nathalie with a sudden exclamation of joy saw a young girl coming quickly toward her, wearing the same kind of a brown uniform she had perceived on her neighbor a few days ago.

“Oh, are you hurt?” asked the girl quickly, as she saw Nathalie’s white face resting against the tree.

Nathalie, attempting to smile, told of her mishap, and then with widening eyes saw the girl run a few steps into the open. Then the short, staccato whistle of Bob White struck the air.

It was hardly a moment when, in response to this bird-call, several girls appeared in the opening beyond. A few hurried words with the girl who had signaled them, and they were around Nathalie, listening to the story of her accident.

After expressing their sympathy, two of the taller girls quickly slipped off their khaki skirts, unbuttoned them, and then, to the injured one’s amazement, one of the girls pushed her staff through the belt of one skirt and hem of the other, while her companion did the same with her staff. They were improvising a stretcher, as neat and comfortable-looking as if it had just been removed from an ambulance.

While the stretcher was being made, one of the girls had taken from her knapsack a small black case from which she extracted a bottle. Hastily kneeling on the ground, after Nathalie’s boot had been removed by her assistant, she bathed the injured foot, then, as her companion handed her a roll of white lint she bound it with a cotton compress, while Nathalie, with much curiosity, watched her as she quickly and skillfully performed the work of First Aid to the Injured. As she rose to her feet and turned to direct her companions in the lifting of her patient on the stretcher, Nathalie recognized her next-door neighbor, Helen Dame, the Girl Pioneer!

CHAPTER II—HER NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR

If Nathalie was surprised at the deftness and resourcefulness of these Girl Pioneers, she was amazed at the ease and comfort she experienced as the four girls strode forward, two at the head and two at the foot of the improvised stretcher.

Notwithstanding the sharp twinges in her foot, she felt as if she could have dropped into a doze if a sudden, jarring thought had not caused her to raise her head in search of her next-door neighbor. By the decision of her voice and her methodical manner of directing her companions as they prepared the “bed of ease,” Nathalie had recognized this girl as the leader.

But Helen Dame was not to be seen. One of the girls, however, on seeing Nathalie’s movement, commanded a halt and hastened to her side. “What can I do for you?” she inquired in an anxious tone. “Are you in pain?”

Her ready sympathy brought the tears to Nathalie’s eyes, for her nerves were somewhat under a strain, but she fought them bravely back, and looking up with a reassuring smile replied, “Oh no, I am all right, but I was looking for Miss Dame. I am afraid if Mother sees me on a stretcher, she will think something very dreadful has happened.”

“Ah, Helen thought of that,” was the quick reply, “and she has gone ahead to tell your mother that you have only hurt your foot, and to see if she can get Dr. Morrow to come over and look at it.”

“Oh, how kind of her—and of you all—” there was a slight tremor in Nathalie’s voice. “I am sure I do not know what would have become of me, alone there in the woods, if you girls had not come to my rescue.”

As the girls walked slowly on with their burden, the one walking by the side of the stretcher told Nathalie that they were a group of Girl Pioneers, that they had been on a hike, and that her name was Grace Tyson. As they chatted pleasantly, Nathalie told of her recent removal from the city to Westport. With wise forethought she suppressed all mention of her former wealth and the many luxuries she had been used to, for fear that these suburban girls, not comprehending, might misjudge her and think that she considered herself above