“Funny folks around here,” remarked Betty to Cathalina. “One man does not want to be seen at all, and another can’t bear to have his picture taken and doesn’t like girls much, I guess. Now I must get a picture of the beach and some of the birds, if Lilian is going to call the place White Wings. I wonder if they won’t let the seniors name it. I suppose that shed or something down there is where the hydroplane is. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get that, too. Perhaps we can when it’s finished.”
“And name it White Wings, too,” suggested Eloise.
“Some of the girls started to peek in a while ago, and the crossest man, worse than the farmer, told them that they weren’t to come around there at all.”
“I imagine it upsets them to have us all over the place like this,” said Cathalina, “but they’ll get used to it, unless they make a rule that picnic parties have to keep to the picnic ground. But the girls were told not to break off any of the fruit or do anything ‘destructive’ and I don’t think any of the senior girls would. My, Diane, do you see that wonderful basket of grapes that man is carrying across the road for us!”
“Who wouldn’t be a senior girl at Greycliff Farm?” inquired Eloise of the squirrels or birds or anybody who happened to be listening, as they hurried to the little summer house.
“Really, this is the best part of the place for us,” said Hilary. “There isn’t a better beach anywhere along than this, and about two or three o’clock we can have a fine swim. Have you noticed the swings and seats in that grassy spot under those old trees?—over in that direction. I’m going to get out my knitting as soon as lunch is over and go there to rest my bones.”
“I didn’t bring my knitting,” said Betty, “but have a good story, one that I bought to read on the train, but didn’t read it there, nor have I had any time since. If you like I can read aloud a while. I move that we offer resolutions of thanks to whoever got up all these things.”
“Miss Randolph thought it up, I imagine,” said Lilian. “She hasn’t liked the Island very well, though I suppose they will go there sometimes still.”
“The Island is very romantic,” said Helen Paget, in her pretty Southern way. “There is the cave, you know, and the rocks, and the place where the water rushes through. I’m glad we had it.”
“Speaking of caves,” said Diane, “you girls never took me to that one you told such wonderful tales about last year. Didn’t you and Isabel, Betty, explore one the year that I wasn’t at Greycliff?”