The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 19

"Beautiful, but foolish," Mollie commented succinctly.

"Do you really expect to swim in it, dear?" asked Amy mildly.

"The effect would be altogether stunning," suggested Betty judicially, her head on one side, "if you c.o.c.ked it just a little further over one eye so as to obscure the sight completely."

There was a ripple of laughter.

"Oh, you're all jealous," remarked Grace, not at all disturbed as she turned back to the mirror once more to pull a curl a little more fetchingly over her ear. "I might have known you would be."

"Goodness, anybody would think she was at Palm Beach or some other show place," cried Mollie, pulling her own plain little cap a trifle lower over her ears. "If you expect an audience, Gracie, I'm afraid you will be disappointed."

"Here I am, trying to give you something good to look at--"

But they would hear no more and hustled her with scant ceremony away from the mirror and out of the door.

"Come on!" cried Betty, taking the stairs two at a time. "Let's see who gets to the water first. I'm betting nine to one on myself."

"Goodness, she's as conceited as you are, Gracie," gasped Mollie, following hard on Betty's footsteps. "Here's my chance to take some of it out of her!"

Grace and Amy, following at not quite such breakneck speed, came out on the porch in time to see two slender, black-clad figures with vivid red and green caps scrambling down the side of the bluff that led to the beach.

As they started after them Mrs. Ford joined them and they ran together to the edge of the bluff. The slope was not quite so gentle as they had thought on the night before, and Mollie and Betty were puffing considerably when they reached the bottom--which they did at almost the same minute.

Then, fleet-footed, they sped across the sand toward the inviting water beyond, while Mrs. Ford, Grace, and Amy clambered down the bluff in their turn.

At the bottom they turned, saw Betty and Mollie reach the water's edge at the same instant--or so it seemed to them--and dash into the green depths. A moment more and the two black figures were lost to sight and only two vivid caps bobbed on the surface of the water.

"Do you suppose it's quite safe?" asked Mrs. Ford. "I wish the girls hadn't been in such a hurry."

"Oh you needn't worry about them," Grace a.s.sured her. "Betty and Mollie are regular fish in the water, and you know there aren't any mean currents around here. The beach slopes gradually down so that they can't get caught in water holes either, so don't worry, Mother," and she slipped an affectionate hand into her mother's and received an answering smile in return.

And, oh, how good that water did feel!

As they waded into it up to their waists, Mollie and Betty came swimming back, shaking the water from their eyes and cleaving the big combers with long, powerful strokes.

"Well, who won?" Amy challenged them, as they came within shouting distance.

"Tell the truth," added Grace.

"Both of us," yelled Mollie.

"Or neither," Betty answered, getting to her feet and walking the rest of the way in toward them. "We couldn't have done better team work if we had tried. Oh, isn't it glorious?"

"We don't know yet--we're not even all wet," returned Mollie, adding, as a great comber came rus.h.i.+ng toward them: "Come on, Gracie, here's a good one. Let's get under it."

And "get under it" they did, cleaving the water prettily, and in another minute were up on the other side of the big wave. They shook the water from their eyes and struck out merrily.

"Don't go too far," Mrs. Ford called after them, and two bare gleaming arms waved back at her.

The hours that followed were just one long delight, and the girls looked surprised and a little abused when Mrs. Ford reluctantly called them in.

"Why, it can't be more than eleven," protested Grace.

"And we haven't seen the water for, oh, ages," added Mollie.

"Please, can't we have half an hour more?" Amy added.

Mrs. Ford looked smilingly from one to the other and then at Betty.

"Well, haven't you any pet.i.tion to make?" she asked of the latter.

"I was thinking," said Betty squinting up at the sun, "that Grace was wrong when she said it wasn't more than eleven. It seems to me to be after twelve."

"It is," said Mrs. Ford firmly. "Quarter past."

"Well, let's go!" cried Betty, starting toward the bluff. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving to death."

"But we'll want to swim again after lunch, won't we?" protested Mollie.

"Of course."

"Well, then," she argued reasonably, "we don't want to change our clothes just for lunch, and we can't very well go up to the house in dripping bathing suits."

The girls groaned.

"Then we'll have to wait for lunch until we've sat here for hours and dried off," wailed Grace.

"And she hasn't even a box of chocolates!" Betty mocked her. "It is a desperate case, Grace."

With another groan Grace sank into the soft, warm sand while the others followed suit, looking so mournful that Mrs. Ford was moved to take pity on them.

"I dried off long ago," she said, adding, as they looked at her hopefully: "I tell you what I'll do. I'll go up and open a couple of cans of tongue and make some sandwiches and bring down the cake we bought yesterday. And we can have some milk to drink, for I had the boy leave a couple of extra quarts this morning. How will that do?"

"Do!" the girls echoed, while Grace hugged her mother with vigor. The eyes of the girls followed her gratefully as Mrs. Ford started off on her work of rescue--at least, that is the way the hungry girls regarded it.

"You know, I have a better appet.i.te than I've had in weeks," announced Mollie, as she dug her toes into the warm sand. "I haven't been eating much lately."

"I hadn't noticed it," commented Grace dryly.

"Well, mother did," returned Mollie spiritedly. "She said she was glad I was going away because she thought the change would do me good. I really should have stayed at home, I suppose, and helped mother take care of the twins," she added thoughtfully. "I never saw two children with such an absolute genius for getting into mischief. But when they're caught, they're so cunning and dear and say such quaint things that it is almost impossible to get angry with them."

"They're adorable," agreed Betty, while all the girls smiled fondly at thought of the twins.

"Just the same," remarked Grace, "although I love them, I'm glad I'm not their sister, for I'd never be able to eat a candy in comfort," and the girls laughed at her.

"It seems so wonderful and peaceful here," said Amy, after a short pause, "and we seem so awfully far away from the rest of the world. It almost makes one believe that the war 'over there' is a dream--"

"Or a nightmare," interpolated Mollie.