The Slipper Point Mystery | Page 8

- oh! I
can't just tell you right now, Doris. Perhaps I will some day." And
Doris said no more, but put the curious remark away in her mind to
wonder over.
"It's something connected with her secret - that I'm sure!" thought Doris.
"I do wish she felt like telling me, but until she does, I 'll try not even to
think about it."
But, all unknown to Doris, the time of her final testing, in Sally's eyes,
was rapidly approaching. Sally herself, however, had known of it and
thought over it for a week or more. About the middle of June, there
came every year to the "Bluffs" a certain party of young folks, half a
dozen or more in number, with their parents, to stay till the middle of
July, when they usually left for the mountains. They were boys and
girls of about Doris's age or a trifle older, rollicking, fun-loving, a little
boisterous, perhaps, and on the go from morning till night. They spent
their mornings at the ocean bathing-beach, their afternoons steaming up
and down the river in the fastest motor-boat available, and their
evenings dancing in the hotel parlor when they could find any one to
play for them. Sally had known them by sight for several years, though
never once, in all that time, had they so much as deigned to notice her
existence.
"If Doris deserts me for them," she told herself, " then I 'll be mighty
glad I never told her my secret. Oh, I do wonder what she 'll do when
they come!"

And then they came. Sally knew of their arrival that evening, when
they rioted down to the Landing to procure the fastest launch her father
rented. And she waited, inwardly on tenterhooks of anxiety, for the
developments of the coming days. But, to her complete surprise,
nothing happened. Doris sought her company as usual, and for a day or
two never even mentioned the presence of the newcomers. At last Sally
could bear it no longer.
"How do you like the Campbells and Hobarts who are at your hotel
now?" she inquired one morning.
"Why, they 're all right," said Doris indifferently, feathering her oars
with the joy of a newly-acquired accomplishment.
"But you don't seem to go around with them," ventured Sally
uncertainly.
"Oh, they tire me to death, they 're so rackety!" yawned Doris. "I like
fun and laughing and joking and shouting as well as the next person -
once in a while. But I can't stand it for steady diet. It's a morning, noon
and night performance with them. They 've invited me to go with them
a number of times, and I will go once in a while, so as not to seem
unsociable, but much of it would bore me to death. By the way, Sally,
Mother told me to ask you to come to dinner with us tonight, if you
care to. She's very anxious to meet you, for I've told her such a lot
about you. Do you think your mother will allow you to come?"
Sally turned absolutely scarlet with the shock of surprise and joy this
totally unexpected invitation caused her.
"Why - yes - er - that is, I think so. Oh, I'm sure of it! But, Doris, do
you really want me? I'm - well, I'm only Sally Carter, you know," she
stammered.
"Why, of course I want you!" exclaimed Doris, opening her eyes wide
with surprise. "I shouldn't have asked you if I had n't." And so it was
settled. Sally was to come up that afternoon, for once without
Genevieve, and have dinner at "The Bluffs" with the Craigs. She spent

an agonized two hours making her toilet for the occasion, assisted by
her anxious mother, who could scarcely fathom the reason for so
unprecedented an invitation. When she was arrayed in the very best
attire she owned (and a very creditable appearance she made, since she
had adopted some of Doris's well-timed hints), her mother kissed her,
bade her "mind how she used her knife and fork," and she set out for
the hotel, joyful on one score, but thoroughly uncomfortable on many
others.
But she forgot much of her agitation in the meeting with Mrs. Craig, a
pale, lovely, golden-haired woman of the gentlest and most winning
manner in the world. In five minutes she had put the shy, awkward
village girl completely at her ease, and the three were soon conversing
as unrestrainedly as if the mother of Doris was no more than their own
age. But Sally could easily divine, from her weakness and pallor, how
ill Mrs. Craig had been, and how far from strong she still was.
Dinner at their own cosy little table was by no