The Slipper Point Mystery | Page 6

Again Sally flushed with pleasure as she
assented, and when Doris had rushed back and seated herself in the
bow of the canoe, they pushed out into the peaceful tide, wine-colored
in the approaching sunset But the evening was too beautiful for

strenuous paddling. Doris soon shipped her paddle and, skilfully
turning in her seat, faced Sally.
"Let's not go far," she suggested, "let's just drift - and talk." Sally
herself was privately only too willing. Dipping her paddle only
occasionally to keep from floating in shore, she nodded another
approving assent. But her country unaccustomedness to conversation
held her tongue-tied for a time.
"Where's Genevieve?" demanded Doris.
"Oh, I put her to bed at half-past six most always," said Sally. "She's
usually so sleepy she can't even finish her supper. But I miss her
evenings. She's a lot of company for me."
"She's a darling!" agreed Doris. "I just love the way she cuddles up to
me, and she looks so - so appealing when she tucks that little thumb in
her mouth. But, Sally, will you forgive my saying it? - you look
awfully nice tonight." Sally turned absolutely scarlet in her appreciation
of this compliment. Truth to tell, she had spent quite an hour over her
toilet when Genevieve had been put to bed, and had even gone flying to
the village to purchase with her little hoard of pocket-money the pink
ribbon for her hair.
"But I wonder if you'd mind my saying something else," went on Doris,
eyeing her companion critically. "You 've got the loveliest colored hair
I ever saw, but I think you ought never to wear any colored ribbon but
black on it. Pink's all right for very light or very dark people, but not
for any one with your lovely shade. You don't mind my saying that, do
you? Sometimes other people can tell what looks best on you so much
better than you can yourself."
"Oh, no. I don't mind - and thank you for telling me," stammered Sally,
in an agony of combined delight that this dainty new friend should
approve her appearance and shame that she had made such an error of
judgment in selecting the pink ribbon. Mentally, too, she was
calculating just how long it would take her to save, from the stray
pennies her mother occasionally gave her, enough to purchase the

suggested black one. While she was figuring it out, Doris had
something else to suggest:
"Sally, let's be good friends. Let's see each other every day. I'm awfully
lonesome when I'm not with Mother, - even more so than you, because
you've got Genevieve. I expect to stay here all summer, and they say
there are very few young folks coming to 'The Bluffs.' It's mostly older
people there, because the younger ones like the hotels on the ocean best.
So things won't be much better for me, even during the season. Can't
we be good friends and see each other a lot, and have a jolly time on
the river, - you and Genevieve and I?"
The appeal was one that Sally could scarcely have resisted, even had
she not herself yearned for the same thing. "It - it would be fine!" she
acknowledged, shyly. "I'm - I'm awfully glad - if you want to."
They drifted about idly a while longer, discussing a trip for the next
morning, in which Sally proposed to show her new friend the deserted
mill, up Cranberry Creek. And Doris announced that she was going to
learn to row, so that the whole burden of that task might not fall on
Sally.
"But now I must go in," she ended. "It's growing dark and Mother will
worry. But you be here in the morning at half-past nine with your boat,
if we'd better not take the canoe on account of Genevieve, and we 'll
have a jolly day."
Not once during all this time, had there been the least reference to the
mysterious hint of Sally's during the earlier afternoon. But this was not
at all because Doris had forgotten it. She was, to tell the truth, even
more curious about it than ever. Her vivid imagination had been busy
with it ever since, weaving all sorts of strange and fantastic fancies
about the suggestion. Did the river have a mystery? What could its
nature be, and how had Sally discovered it? Did any one else know?
The deepening shadows on the farther shore added the last touch to her
busy speculations. They suggested possibilities of every hue and kind.
But not for worlds would she have had Sally guess how ardently she
longed for its revelation. Sally should tell her in good time, or not at all,

if she were so inclined: never because she (Doris) had asked