“Miss Doring and Miss Dearman,” exclaimed Madge mischievously, “may I present to you my young brother, Everett? If I had not claimed him, you might have mistaken him for a white water-rat, if such a creature exists.”
Everett made a deep bow as he gayly cried, “Young ladies, may I take you for a sail? My boat will be in directly.”
“You may row us out to Pine Island in about half an hour,” Madge declared, “and now we’ll leave you to your fate.”
“My brother is just learning to sail a boat,” she explained, as she led the girls toward Little Bear Inn.
“What pretty gardens!” Eva said. “And, oh, what a picturesque, rambling old house!”
The inn was built of rough logs, and all about it stood great old pine-trees, through which the breeze was murmuring.
“I do love pine-trees,” Adele exclaimed. “There’s something so restful about them.”
“I like them, too,” Madge said, as she led the girls across the wide veranda, on which were rustic chairs and tables and green bowls filled with ferns and wild flowers.
Eva thought that she had never seen anything more attractive than the big cool room which they next entered. There were heavy beams overhead, and the furniture was green willow, comfortably upholstered in dark red. There were antlers on the wall, and pictures of deer drinking at the edge of the lake.
“Do look!” Eva exclaimed. “Here is a picture of the darlingest little bear. Oh, Miss Peterson, was the lake named after him, do you suppose?”