"It's Crazy Jane," cried Harriet. "Look! She has found Tommy."
Jane had lifted little Tommy off her feet and was kissing her delightedly while Tommy lisped "Thave me, oh, thave me!" causing the other girls near at hand to laugh amusedly at the funny scene.
At that moment Crazy Jane catching sight of Harriet and her companions, bounded toward them. Jane was bare-headed. Her blonde hair was flying about her face and neck; her dress unprotected by a dust coat was covered with the gray dust of the highways, over which she had driven, and her whole appearance was disheveled and travel-stained.
Jane fairly flung herself into the arms of Harriet Burrell, giving her a hearty hug, then treating Margery, Hazel and Miss Elting to the same sort of greeting.
"Dad's over there. Come on and shake hands with him. He's going back shortly. You can help me unload the car. Oh, we're going to have a great time, aren't we darlin's!"
"You don't mean that you have come to join the camp, do you!" questioned Miss Elting.
"Of course, I have," retorted Crazy Jane. "What did you think I had come for? Meadow-Brook is like a graveyard since you girls went away. Oh this is great, isn't it? We'll rattle the bones of this old camp, won't we?"
Harriet laughed merrily. Miss Elting looked grave.
"Does Mrs. Livingston know--did she know you were coming?"
"Of course, she did. Dad looked after that. Where is she. She'll be delighted to see me, I'll wager."
"Yeth," nodded Tommy who had joined them. "The'll be tho glad that thhe'll cry her eyeth out. How long are you going to thtay?"
"As long as you do. Now let's get that car unloaded and start something. This place is so quiet it gives me the blues."
Margery threw up her hands in despair, Harriet smiled amusedly, Miss Elting shook her head hopelessly. Jane darted off with long strides. She had grabbed a hand of the protesting Tommy and was fairly dragging the little girl along with her. It was a strange figure that Mrs. Livingston, who stood talking with Jane's father, saw approaching her, and during the weeks that followed she was to understand quite fully why Jane McCarthy's friends had named her "Crazy Jane."
"Oh, how do you do?" greeted Jane when her father had introduced her to Mrs. Livingston.