So they parted, with last smiles and salutes and promises to see each other again. “The nice thing about life, girls,” said Betty Lee, “is that you never know what is going to turn up. It’s like a big mystery story, with little clues that you miss when you’re reading it; and if you decide one way, it’s one thing and if you decide another way—about something important, I mean—it’s another way.”
“Listen to our philosopher, Carolyn,” said Kathryn.
“There are girls that don’t think life’s interesting at all,” remarked Carolyn. “But Betty would find something, even if she lived back in the Buxton she talks about.”
“It isn’t the size of the place, Carolyn,” began Betty, with an air of wisdom that she knew was comical. “It’s what you’ve got in your little insides, I guess. But I am ‘lucky,’ as Janet wrote me, to have so much happening.”
The objective of this trip was a quiet little village on the coast of Maine, with its rocks and inlets and rivers and lakes. It was such a place as city people love to find, for while it was being developed as a resort, it was small, and the outlying homes of the summer residents were scattered.
From the main highway they drove upon a road which was being repaired, or made into a respectable road for automobiles. Driving was difficult now in places, but at last they came upon a smooth road between woods full of new kinds of trees and growths that made Betty exclaim with pleasure, as she had before, passing through this to her new country. She had kept account of all states through which she had passed and concluded that she was becoming quite a traveled girl. But a wood peewee called from the depths of the forest and a flock of quail whirred as they hastened from the bushes by the roadside. Molly Cottontail ran to cover, and Betty concluded that it was still America and home!
But why call this a cottage! After more driving they came into the village and beyond it to a bit of a grove, where stood a large house, new but of a “dear old-fashioned” colonial type; and Mr. Gwynne stopped the car to let his passengers have a view of it. “Still like it, dear?” he asked his wife.
“Yes. The setting is exactly what I like, no hard hill to climb, just this gentle rise and the house among the trees, all white and green.”
So far as Betty was concerned, she could have welcomed the place forever, and although at this moment she could not see the ocean, she could hear its waves beating upon the shore not too far away! Its fresh breezes gently moved the trees and through them in the other direction a red sun was sinking toward the irregular contour of the land. Betty needed no camera to remember this, but Carolyn planned at once for pictures of the house and grounds.
“Tomorrow, girls, we’ll get out and take a lot of pictures of the house and grounds and get down to the beach, too, in our bathing suits.”