“If your brother will stay over until to-morrow, we will drive up to Lairnie Lake and have our lunch there.”
“To-day?” cried Dolly ecstatically.
Polly nodded.
“It is a small pleasure resort,” she explained to the young man, “some forty-five miles to the north.”
“Oh, Sardis!” exclaimed the little one, her blue eyes begging for the answer which he hesitated to give.
“I ought not,” he began, and then smiled down to the small girl on his knee.
“Are the web-footed swimmers on Lairnie Lake very different from those elsewhere?”
“Oh, ever so different!” she laughed. “But I’m not going to tell you one word more. He’ll stay, Miss Dudley! I know by his eyes—they are full of nice twinkles.”
It was decided that Polly and Lilith, Dolly and her brother, and Dr. Abbe should take a flying trip to the lake which a number of them had visited a week or two previous.
Dolly, in an ecstasy of joy, kept things lively until the start. After being dressed for the little journey she was put in her wheel-chair which stood near the edge of the piazza, and, bubbling over as she was with eager delight, she twisted this way and that until Polly was startled by one of her sudden turns.