room, they found not only the
Browns, but several other young people waiting on the veranda to escort
them down to the beach.

There were general introductions, and as they went down the long flight
of the hotel steps, Dolly found herself walking beside a girl named
Pauline Clifton.

Pauline was rather tall and seemed to have an air of authority. Though
not exactly pretty, she was striking-looking, with brown eyes and hair
and a complexion of rosy tan. She wore a white dress and a red sweater
and white stockings with red shoes, and she put her hand through Dolly's
arm with a decided air of possession.

"I like you already," she said, "and I'm sure we're going to be chums.
Are you rich?"

The question struck Dolly as funny, and she turned to look into
Pauline's face. But the brown eyes were serious, and evidently the
Clifton girl wished an answer and was prepared to rate her new friend
accordingly.

"No," said Dolly, returning the frank gaze; "we're not rich. We live in
a small town, and we have about everything we want, but I'm sure we're
not what you'd call rich. Are you?"

It would never have occurred to Dolly to ask this question, but it
seemed to follow naturally after the other's.

"Oh, yes," Pauline said, "we're awfully rich. We live in New York, and
my father has a yacht and lots of motor cars and everything."

"I should think you'd have your own summer home, then, and not come to a
hotel."

"We have; two of them. One on Long Island and one up in the mountains.
But Father takes freaks. I haven't any mother, and he jumps around
wherever he feels like it. So he picked this place for August and here
we are. There's only me and Carroll, that's my brother. He's that boy on
ahead, with his cap on the back of his head."

"Who looks after you; your father?"

"Yes; but he isn't here much. We have a kind of a nurse-governess; that
is, she used to be our nurse when we were little and she has always
stayed with us. She's a funny old thing, Liza her name is, but she can
manage us better than anybody else. Father tried a French governess for
me and a German Frauelein, and Carroll has a different tutor about every
month, but Liza just stays on through it all. I know all about you from
the Brown boys. Aren't they ducks! They told us about you before you
came, and about Dotty Rose. Isn't she pretty? You're awfully pretty,
too, and you two look lovely together."

Pauline rattled on, scarcely giving Dolly a chance t