the other children she
saw were having half as good a time as she was.

"Look, Winnie, there is the ocean," her mother said eagerly, as the
train rushed across a long bridge, and a whiff of sea air blew in their
faces.

"Where, where?" gasped Winifred, stretching her neck out of the car
window. "Oh, I see. Why, how big it is. I never saw water like that
before. Do you suppose it looks like this at Navesink?"

"I should not be at all surprised if it looked very much like it," said
Mrs. Hamilton, laughing.

At that moment the train began to slacken speed.

"Navesink, Navesink," shouted the brakeman, putting his head in at the
car door.

"Isn't it the very loveliest surprise you ever had?" demanded Lulu Bell,
dancing up and down on the platform, and hugging Winifred tight. "I
never knew a single thing about it till last night, but mamma has known
for ever so long, and papa engaged the rooms at the hotel for you. Why,
Winifred, don't look as if you were just waking up. It's the nicest
thing in the world. You're all going to stay at the hotel for a month,
and your father's going to town every day the same as papa does. They
wanted it to be a surprise for you. See, here's Betty, and Jack's right
over there in the go-cart. We all came down to the station to meet you,
and it seemed as if the train would never come, we were so excited."

"Oh," gasped Winifred, finding her voice at last, "it's the very most
beautiful thing that could possibly have happened. Are you quite sure
it's all true, and not a dream?"

CHAPTER XI

AT NAVESINK

"I think the sea is the most beautiful thing in the world," said Jack,
laying down his drawing pencil, and settling himself comfortably in the
warm sand. "I could just sit and look at it all day long."

"Is your sketch finished?" inquired Winifred, looking up from the sand
fort she was building.

"Yes, do you want to see it?" And Jack held out a sheet of foolscap for
his friend's inspection. Jack was a very different-looking boy from the
pale little cripple of two months before. There was a light in his eyes
and a color in his cheeks that no one had ever seen there since the day
of his babyhood. The healthy outdoor life in the bracing sea air was
doing wonders for him. Winifred examined the sketch admiringly.

"It's perfectly lovely," she announced. "That fishing boat with the man
in it looks as natural as can be. I think you will be a splendid artist
when you grow up, Jack.