“This afternoon, but please don’t congratulate him. We have both lost a dear friend, and just now we can think only of that.”
“Of course, dear, I should have remembered.” Mabel spoke regretfully, and went over to put her arm around Ellen. Both girls had gained in weight and color. A row of tiny freckles had appeared on the bridge of Ellen’s nose, but her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright, while Mabel was tanned and had lost a listless air which had been hers on her arrival.
Miss Rindy, looking at them, remarked upon their exuberant health. “This place surely doesn’t owe us anything,” she remarked. “I never saw such improvement in two beings, and as for myself I feel like a four-year-old. As for Beulah, she’s grown so fat she can scarcely waddle, and such an appetite! I don’t see how we can afford to feed her when we get back.”
“Oh, yes, we can, now,” Ellen assured her. “No doubt she will lose her appetite when she gets away from this stimulating air.”
“Only another week of it,” sighed Mabel. “The Palmers have gone, the Truesdells are beginning to pack up, and pretty soon all the lights alongshore will be out. Aunt Zenobia Simpson says she hates to see the last one go, but a lot of the natives are glad when they can have their island to themselves, and I don’t blame them. I suppose Reed and Tom are over at H. H.,” which was the way they spoke of the haunted house among themselves.
“Yes, Reed said there was a lot to do there. They want us to go over for a parting supper there to-morrow.”
“It is a dear place,” Mabel spoke reminiscently. “I’d like nothing better than to come up here every summer with you two and be sure that those boys would be over there. We have had such good times together. Oh, why can’t good times last forever?”
“They would cease to be good times after a while, and become only monotonous ones,” observed Miss Rindy sagely.
The next day brought them to their final visit to the little studio across the bridge, where a greater feast than usual was spread. The young artists gave each guest one of their sketches as a parting souvenir, Reed played a farewell rhapsody, and they went slowly home, lingering to watch a young moon, escorted by the evening star, dip down behind the line of peaked firs.
The sea was a little rough and boomed upon the rocks, a big wave once in a while hissing in, breaking thunderously, and then subsiding into a line of foam which was beginning to form creamy balls of spindrift.