Part 5 (2/2)
”Yes,” she answered.
”That secret of mine.”
”Oh, yes. What is it? Do tell me! I haven't a second----”
”I'll tell you--when I come down!” his words floated to her as she was borne along the platform with her chums to the train that was to take them to Ocean View.
CHAPTER V
OLD TIN-BACK
”Isn't he provoking!” murmured Grace, sinking into a seat beside Mollie, as the train slowly pulled out.
”Who?” asked Mollie, leaning toward the window to wave to the boys on the platform.
”My brother Will. He's up to something--he has a secret and he won't tell me!”
”Don't let him know you care, and he'll tell you all the quicker. Boys are that way,” declared Mollie, with the acc.u.mulated wisdom of--say--seventeen years.
”Yes, I suppose so,” agreed Grace, and then she began a hurried search among the various articles she had deposited on the seat between herself and Mollie.
”What is it--lost something?” asked the latter.
”My bag of--oh, here they are,” and Grace, with a look of contentment, began munching some chocolates.
”It is awfully nice of you, Mrs. Nelson, to ask us down for the summer,”
said Amy Blackford to her hostess when they were settled in the speeding train. ”I do so love the seash.o.r.e.”
”Then I think you will like it at Ocean View,” remarked Betty's mother.
”And we think Edgemere a pretty place.”
”I'm sure it must be from what Betty has told me.”
”Do you like lobsters?” asked Mr. Nelson, looking over the top of his paper, with a twinkle in his eyes.
”Lobsters?” repeated Amy, questioningly. ”I haven't eaten many.”
”It's a great place for lobsters at Ocean View,” went on Betty's father.
”That's one reason I decided on it.”
”The idea!” cried his wife. ”To hear you talk anyone would think you never ate anything else, and you know if you take too much _a la Newburg_ you don't feel well the next day.”
”I'm going to take only the plain boiled, and salads,” declared Mr.
Nelson. ”But there's an old lobsterman--Tin-Back, they call him--near Edgemere in whom I think you girls will be interested,” he went on.
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