Part 20 (1/2)
”Now, young ladies, are you ready for a tramp? We have to walk to the old village this morning to shop, unless you want to go to the dock and take Frank's ferry. He will take us across for ten cents each, and we need things to eat.”
”Oh, do let us walk,” begged Bess. ”I haven't seen half the things that grow around here.”
”Do _you_ grow around here?” asked Belle, maliciously, inferring that the desired walk was needed to ”reduce.” A withering look was the answer she received from her twin sister. Just the same the walk was decided upon, and a little later the wintergreen path was alive with voices. It was one of the delights of Summer to tramp and ramble; and in spite of the joys of motor boating the girls were not slow to appreciate the pleasures of dry land decked in various shades of foliage green and floral tints.
The mountain laurel was at its best--that little ta.s.selled thing we call ”pfingster,” but which looks quite aristocratic enough to belong to the orchid family, made bouquets of itself in every appropriate spot, while the glorious rhododendrons put forth a display sufficiently beautiful and courageous to last all Summer.
”Oh, my, look at the style!” Lottie exclaimed as a party of young folks appeared before them. They were evidently coming from the Cliff Hotel, and made the most of that fact.
”There's Hilda Hastings!” Cora said, in surprise. ”I didn't know she was down here.”
A remarkably pretty girl, light-haired and wearing lilac shades, with a parasol that reflected that becoming tint, was Hilda. She evidently saw, and recognized Cora just as the latter spied her.
”Cora Kimball!” cried Hilda, in the delighted way that usually marks a meeting with a home friend in the midst of vacation time. ”Where did you come from?”
”Oh, Hilda!” answered Cora, advancing to meet the girl who almost ran to greet her, ”I am so glad to see you. We are stopping at our own little bunk--the Motely Mote--on Pine Shade Way. And where do you put up?”
Introductions followed, and girls from the Mote were plainly delighted to meet the others from a fas.h.i.+onable hotel. The meeting also resulted in a general invitation from the Cliff girls to the Motes to attend a hop to be given the next evening at the hotel.
”And do bring every boy you can sc.r.a.pe up,” Hilda enjoined. ”We shall be sure to need them.”
”What dress?” asked Lottie the Vain.
”Linen or lace, doesn't matter in the least,” declared a young girl whom they called Madge. ”We will wear whatever we fall into for dinner.”
”All right,” answered Lottie for all, fluttering at the prospect of a real hotel hop. ”We will wear whatever we may find pressable--we have the awfullest time with wrinkles down here.”
”Don't mind them,” answered Hilda. ”Wrinkled clothes are a seaside fad, you know. If you have none you will be suspected of being the Press Club Trust. That's a clothing club--not literary.”
With other pleasantries the two sets parted, but not until all sorts of invitations to come and visit had been extended and accepted.
”What nice girls,” the timid Marita remarked as the fas.h.i.+onable ones turned into the lane. ”Isn't Hilda pretty? Are they from Chelton?”
”She is and they are,” answered Cora. ”But I do not see how we are going to that hop. The boys were going to take us out in a sail boat, you know.”
”Oh, I would be frightened to death in a sail boat,” objected Lottie.
”And perfectly safe in a canoe,” observed Belle. ”Charlotte, that is scarcely understandable.”
”Well,” said Lottie, turning a deeper shade of pink, ”I am afraid of that big pole in a sail boat. It looks as if it would sweep one's head off every time it veers around.”
”Just duck,” advised Belle. ”It's a great teacher of the proper mode of ducking; and that is not to be despised, Lottie, whether one has to duck harsh words, or big poles. But I want to go sailing. I can't see what fun there is in going into a stuffy hotel on a beautiful moonlight evening when we can go out on the water and see something.”
”Don't you think we would see something in the Cliff ball room?”
challenged Lottie.
”Peace!” called Cora, good-naturedly. ”It looks as if we might have to take a vote on the question. But I can't say that the boys would be willing to accept a negative answer.”
”Oh, won't they come?” Lottie asked in surprise.
”I don't believe they will forego the sail,” replied Cora. ”However, we won't decide until we ask them. If they want to postpone the water sport we may take in the hop.”