Pauline rattled on, scarcely giving Dolly a chance to reply to her observations. Meantime the group had come to a standstill and were selecting a nice place on the beach to spend the morning hours.
Dotty was enchanted with her first real experience of the seashore.
She sat down in the sand with the rest, but quickly made her way to the front of the group and as near as possible to the edge of the waves in her effort to get an unobstructed view of the ocean. The surf was rolling in and the great breakers filled her with awe and delight.
"Come farther back, Dotty," Tad Brown called out, "or you'll get caught by some of those swells."
Dotty drew back just in time to escape a wetting from a big wave whose white foam rolled up the sands to her very feet.
"Isn't it wonderful!" she cried; "I could sit right here all day and never take my eyes off those waves!"
But the sight was not so novel to the others, and they talked and laughed and threw sand at each other and built forts and watched for passing steamers and made plans for future amusements.
"That's the worst of the seashore," said Pauline, discontentedly; "there's so little to do. Just walk the boardwalk or sit on the sand or bathe; that's about all."
"Nonsense, Polly," said her brother Carroll; "there's lots else to do. Going motoring or walking in the woods, and there's a bowling alley at the hotel and tennis courts—there's millions of things to do, only you're such an old grouch you never see the fun of anything."
Pauline paid no attention to this brotherly remark, but said to Dotty, "Come on, let's go for a walk; I want to get acquainted with you."