Holiday Guests

Arrangements at Tahawus cabin were to be readjusted to meet the approach of Christmas guests, especially as the household was a strictly feminine one and a number of the guests were masculine.

Captain Burton would come up from Washington city to be with his wife for a few days, if not the entire length of the holiday.

Dan Webster with his mother and sister, Peggy, intended spending several weeks. Mrs. Webster had been unable to see her sister except for a few days since her return from Europe. Peggy Webster desired a rest and a farewell holiday with her group of Camp Fire girls before her marriage to Ralph Merritt. Therefore Ralph was to be a few days at the cabin but was not to remain the entire length of Peggy’s stay.
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A third visitor, who had not the excuse of family relationship, was David Hale, a young American whom the Camp Fire girls met originally in France during the days of the Peace Conference.[3]

At that time he had been an especial friend of Bettina Graham’s and of the French girl, Marguerite Arnot, but later on both girls had lost sight of him, since Bettina only answered his letters occasionally and he had never written Marguerite.

However, he had returned to the United States with the closing of his work as secretary to a prominent member of the Peace Council and since had lived in Washington city.
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Through a note of introduction from Bettina he had met her mother and father, and he and Mrs. Graham had become fast friends. Indeed, for a number of years Betty Graham had held a small court of young men about her in Washington, to whom she represented their ideal of what a gracious and beautiful woman should be. The situation always had amused her husband and friends, and Bettina openly declared that she cherished not the faintest hope of becoming her mother’s rival. As a matter of fact, she was not especially popular. So she was scarcely surprised, and not in the least annoyed, upon arriving at the conclusion that her mother had supplanted her in David Hale’s friendship. True, she had liked him in France, where they seemed to have many points of congeniality! But some little time had passed since then and other interests had interfered with her original impression. Nevertheless, she was glad to accept her mother’s suggestion that they ask David Hale to make one of their Christmas house party. The other girls had liked him, Miss Patricia had treated him with marked favor, and there was little doubt that he would add to everybody’s pleasure.
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Now and then Bettina had wondered if Marguerite Arnot were homesick or regretted leaving her own country for the United States. True, she had said nothing to suggest this, yet she was as reserved as Bettina herself! Moreover, so far she had not in any way been thrown upon her own resources, part of her time in America she had spent with her mother and herself and the rest with Miss Patricia Lord. After the Camp Fire winter was over her future was less assured unless she should choose to remain in Washington city with them. Undoubtedly Marguerite had proved extremely useful to her mother with her pretty, quiet manner and her gift for sewing. Yet her position in their household had been a little difficult, due more to Marguerite’s shyness and her refusal to take part in the social life of Washington as their friend, which was the position she and her mother both wished Marguerite to accept.

So Bettina, recalling the fact that Marguerite Arnot had in her quiet fashion displayed pleasure in David Hale’s acquaintance, regarded this as another reason to be pleased with his appearance at the Christmas house party. During the weeks she and Marguerite were in Washington city, they had been able to see David Hale only once, as he chanced to be west at the time on official business.
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Never before had Bettina thought of herself in the light of a matchmaker, so, secretly, she was amused by her present point of view. Marguerite Arnot and David Hale were her friends and one always possessed the right to wish happiness for one’s friends. Now the Adirondack woods in their winter cloak were like fairyland, so wonderful that Bettina, had she not been sure she was proof against romance, must have felt their romantic influence. She did feel their inspiration and their beauty every hour of the day. But Bettina had arranged a future for herself in which an ordinary romance played no part, and by ordinary romance she meant the eternal romance of youth.

Dr. and Mrs. Ashton, Alice’s and Sally’s parents, were to arrive from Boston, bringing with them a distant cousin, a youth of about nineteen or twenty whom neither girl had seen in a number of years.

One change in their household arrangements upon which the Camp Fire guardian and Mrs. Graham both insisted was that during the holiday season some one be secured to assist with the domestic work, else with so many additional people to be cared for, the girls would be worn out and have little time for pleasure.
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Mrs. Burton had another reason which she did not choose to make public. She dreaded the added strain upon Miss Patricia, who in spite of her wonderful vigor and energy would doubtless wear herself to the breaking point and be extremely difficult in consequence. At the close of her reconstruction work in France to which she had devoted herself she had reached England in a state of nervous and physical exhaustion. However, after a few weeks of travel and rest she had entirely recovered. Notwithstanding, Mrs. Burton could not refrain from worrying over Miss Patricia’s unfailing care of her, in which she seemed unwilling to allow any one else to share. Any human being with less tact than Mrs. Graham would long since have met with Miss Patricia’s disapproval. She did manage, however, to spend several hours each day with her friend without incurring Miss Patricia’s anger, and in small ways, never in more important ones, to relieve the older woman’s constant vigilance. As a matter of fact, Betty Graham was a decided favorite with Aunt Patricia and had been for a number of years. Many times she w............