o come along."

Walter was looking his very best, which was always good, for the brown
boy was now browner than ever, with the tan of beach sand and sun.
Bess wore a most becoming linen gown, with just a rim of embroidered
pink around her plump neck, and she, too, looked charming. Then
Belle--Belle always wore dainty things, she was so perfectly blonde and
so bisquelike. Her gown was of the simplest silvery stuff that Jack
described as cloudy. Cora, after her auto trip of the afternoon, had
"freshed up" in dazzling white. She loved contrast, and invariably,
after driving, would don something directly opposite to that required
for motoring. Her dark hair looked blacker than usual against the
fleecy white, and her face was strictly handsome. Cora Kimball had
grown from pretty to handsome just as naturally as a bud unfolds into a
flower, with the attending dignity.

"If Cora thinks it's all right," weakened Bess.

"I don't see why we shouldn't go," replied Cora, "especially as the
boys cannot have the launch for another evening. But I suppose that
would mean a second change of dress," with a look at the flimsy
costumes about her.

"Why?" asked Jack.

"These--in the evening on the water?"

"Why not? Wear shawls or something----"

"Yes," assented Belle. "It is all right to be dressed up in a launch
when we don't have to motor the boat."

"Oh, I'll attend to the motoring," promised Ed. "I am the fellow who
borrowed the boat."

"Has Nettie a key?" asked Cora.

"I guess so," replied Bess. "We can leave the cellar window----"

"We can do nothing of the sort, Bess Robinson," interrupted Belle, "and
have that man sneak in? I guess not!"

"Oh, your man!" protested Jack. "Haven't you forgotten him yet?
That's what I call faithful."

"Well, at any rate, I am sure Nettie has her key," finished Bess. "And
there is only one more train. If she does not come----"

"I'll sleep in the hammock on the porch," volunteered Jack. "It would
be heaps better than melting in the bungalow to-night."

"I thought that bungalow was perfection," remarked Belle.

"It is--on the catalogue. But after a day's sun like to-day we just
put our ham and eggs on the corrugated iron roof, and they are done to
a turn in the morning, with nice little ridge patterns on them."

"If we are going sailing, we'd better be at it," Walter reminded them.
Whereat the girls ran off to get wraps, and shortly returned ready for
the trip.