Left by herself a few minutes later, Mary Jane dug herself into the sand and buried her feet, her legs, and tossed the sand over her chest. Then, tiring of that amusement, she shook herself free of the sand, stood up and looked around and—but—after that nobody seemed to know just what Mary Jane did do.
Ten minutes after she left her so comfortably settled with her play, Mrs. Merrill and Alice, flushed and laughing with their fun in the waves, ran up the beach to where Mary Jane had been playing. But no Mary Jane was there to greet them!
Quickly Mrs. Merrill looked over the many bathers along the edge of the waves—there was no little girl with bobbed brown hair. Hurriedly she ran and questioned the life-guard; no, he hadn't seen any little girl in a blue and white suit.
The word passed along from one person to another but not a soul could tell where the little girl was. Several had seen her playing and watching her mother and sister but no one had seen her get up and go away.
There was lost, one Mary Jane; and a distracted mother and sister together with a beach full of interested people started on a hunt for the missing child.
TEA ON THE TERRACE
Questions and answers flew thick and fast as, one after another, the many bathers at Rye Beach learned that a little girl was lost.
"Are you sure she didn't follow you and go into the water?" asked one.
"Awful undertow," whispered another, "if she lost her footing even near the shore—" but Mrs. Merrill turned away so as not to hear any more.
"Maybe she went up the beach a way," suggested another.