Grace Harlowes Problem | Page 3

gone our separate way, but we can't have one another. Besides, what is anything in the way of amusement compared to a Semper reunion?"
"Now you're talking," commended Emma, with an encouraging flourish of her hand. She had been busily scooping up the white sand as she listened to her friends' conversation. Now she took a fresh handful and let it fall gently into the open space between the back of Sara Emerson's neck and her bathing suit. Sara, leaning interestedly forward, was an opportunity not to be disregarded.
"O-o-o-o," wailed the wriggling twin.
"Why, Sara, whatever is the matter?" inquired Emma with such exaggerated solicitude that the victim laughed in spite of herself. "Some ill-natured persons threw pebbles at me a while ago, but I remained calm. That is, until I was dragged across the sand in a brutal manner, and had to beg for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even then I was a credit to Overton and the Sempers. I neither writhed nor howled."
"Well, we're even now," declared Sara. "I'll foreswear pebbles if you'll abolish the sand habit."
"I have always liked to look at Emma from a distance," said Julia Emerson, hastily sliding to the extreme edge of the group.
"Listen, ye babblers," called Elfreda, "to the voice of the oracle. Let's leave old Father Ocean to himself and get into our everyday clothes. If we are going on a picnic, we'd better start. We can be on our way in an hour from now, if we hurry. To-night after dinner we'll all take a last melancholy stroll down here to find out what the wild waves are saying."
"Wild waves," jeered Emma Dean. "Did you ever see the ocean smile more sweetly, the deceitful old thing. When one stops to think of the ships and people it gobbles up every year one feels like cutting its acquaintance."
"It is the greatest of all mysteries," said Arline Thayer, her eyes fixed dreamily on the limitless expanse of water.
"And I, in my Sphinx costume, am next," reminded Emma modestly.
Emma's placid manner of classing together the ocean and a fancy costume she had worn at a Semper Fidelis bazaar was received with the delight that always attended her astonishing sallies.
"Come on, children," Grace rose from the sand, looking slim, almost immature, in her dark blue bathing suit. With her fair skin, which neither tanned nor sunburned, and her radiant gray eyes, she fully carried out that look of extreme youth which her friends were wont frequently to comment on. In obedience to her call the girls scrambled to their feet and strolled toward the Briggs' cottage, which was within a very short distance of the beach.
On their way they came face to face with a trio of girls who had approached from the opposite direction. One of them, a particularly pretty girl, with auburn curls and a sweet, laughing face, cried out in surprise, "Why, J. Elfreda Briggs, where did you come from?"
"Madge Morton!" exclaimed Elfreda, holding out her hand delightedly. "I didn't know you were in this part of the country. Mr. Curtis told me you had found your father and gone on a trip around the world, but that was ages ago. And if here isn't Phyllis Alden and Lillian Selden. Will wonders never cease? But where is Eleanor?"
"She and Mrs. Curtis went out sailing with Tom," answered Phyllis Alden, an attractive girl with honest, dark eyes.
"Oh, excuse me, girls." Elfreda turned to her party and a general introducing followed.
"Where are you staying, Madge?" asked Elfreda when the two groups of girls had finished exchanging bows and smiles.
"Mrs. Curtis has taken a cottage at Wildwood for the rest of the summer. She only arrived there last week, and Phyllis, Lillian, Eleanor and I met in New York and came on here yesterday."
"You don't say so. Ma will be delighted to see her. You know they've been friends for ages. We hadn't heard from her for some time, though. Sorry you didn't get here sooner. You could have become better acquainted with my friends," deplored Elfreda. "They are all going away to-morrow."
"I'm sorry, too," smiled the pretty girl. "I'm sure we'd love to know them better." She made a gracious little gesture toward the Sempers, whose eyes were fixed upon her in open admiration.
"Never mind, you are sure to meet some of us in New York this winter, if you are going to be there," promised Elfreda.
"Yes, Father is going to take a house in New York. He is anxious to look up his brother officers in the Navy who are stationed there. We are through traveling for a time."
"The Briggs' family are going to stay in the neighborhood of the sad sea waves until the first of October, so I'll see you often. Ma will run over to see Mrs. Curtis