“I’ll be surprised still,” said Ann, “but I hope that it is so. Florida, land of alligators and cypress swamps,——”
“You will love it, Miss Ann,” Ronald declared, as Ann hesitated. “Think of more agreeable things than alligators,—blue skies, for instance, and bluer waters and sitting on the deck of my yacht as we sit here, going down the inland waterway.”
“Is your yacht strong enough to go out into the real ocean?”
“Yes, but when it is rough or stormy, you know, it takes a large vessel to keep the passengers from feeling the swell and waves too much.”
“I see. I have never been out on the ocean.”
“Why, Ann!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Then I was on your mountains before you have been on my adorable ocean.”
Ann nodded and smiled. “Do you like the sea the way I like my mountains?”
“Indeed I do! But you must have the ocean this winter. We’ll go in bathing and have more fun!”
“Count us in on that,” Maurice added. “We can do a good deal in two or three weeks’ vacation, can’t we, Ronald?”
“Yes. Dad and Mother will take the yacht down when they go, perhaps, and we can get there more quickly by train, then take the girls yachting after we get there. We’ll get up a party. There are always a lot of our friends going, you know.”