p?" says I.

"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the
carriage is waiting."

To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a
wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay
for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever
grew.

"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her
window-blinds.

I got up and shook out my dress.

"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to
invite us, so don't keep him waiting."

I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must
have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting
in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.

I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly
flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons
and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously,
and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to
tantalize a minister.

Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the
whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was
national as well as individual.

E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black
plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young
woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her
sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish
Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.

If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married
woman.

We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child
perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr.
Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion
only, insisted on it that I should get in first--which would have
brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a
sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white
feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be
persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she
got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth.
I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away
we went.

CHAPTER XCV.

THE CLAM-BAKE.

Two carriage-loads of people were at Pleasure Bay, wandering a