"That you ought not to have left me," said Lucy, with a saucy laugh.
Lena was too much taken aback to answer this, and Lucy, seeing her advantage, continued, "You and Milly are just as wet as I am;" and she pointed to their feet and dresses, which certainly were both wet and dirty.
Several of the paddlers had gathered round to listen to the conversation, and as Lucy pointed triumphantly to her sister's wet feet, they all raised a laugh. For a moment Lena looked very angry; but catching Milly's eyes, which were dancing with suppressed laughter, the absurdity of it all struck her also, and she joined in the laugh.
"I expect you will all catch it, when you go home," remarked one of the small bystanders in a delighted tone.
"Come, Lucy, it is time to go home."
"Not yet; it's such fun here, I mean to stay," said Lucy, who was so elated at having silenced Lena's scolding, that she thought she might do what she chose.
A laugh from the listeners egged Lucy on in her naughtiness.
Milly's "O Lucy, how can you be so naughty!" was taken no notice of.
Lena, with heightened colour but in silence, walked off to where a lady was sitting, reading, and asked politely, if she would "tell her the time."
"Five-and-twenty minutes to seven," was the answer as she looked at her watch.