Betty shook her feet lose and prepared for the worst. “If he goes under those trees, I’ll try to catch hold of a limb,” she thought. But being unexpectedly whirled among the trees does not give one much of a chance for any gymnastic exploit. Calico stopped suddenly in front of an apparently impenetrable wall of bushes, and as Betty shot over his head, wheeled and started in another direction.
Meanwhile, Cathalina, galloping with the gay company of seniors and others, had never a thought that anything could happen to Betty. At the pavilion she slipped quickly from her fiery Black Prince, as she called him, ran to catch up with Hilary and Pauline who were ahead of her, hurried to Lakeview Suite, donned more suitable attire for the lake, and joined Hilary, Lilian and some of the other girls who were bound for the same place. Arrived at the lake, they found the waters smooth, and to their delight, the Greycliff ready to take any of the girls for a ride. It had recently come in from a trip to White Wings and was only waiting to be filled up again.
“This is better for lazy folks like me than rowing,” said Cathalina.
“We are all pretty tired after our long ride anyway,” said Hilary. “Poor Betty! I don’t believe she could have resisted this, if she had known that the Greycliff was going out. Had she come when you left Cathalina?”
“No; I was only a few minutes behind you girls. I was almost ready when I told you to start on. She was going to gather a flower or two she saw for her book. I imagine she stayed to talk to some of the girls at the pavilion.”
“Eloise couldn’t come, either, had a music lesson. She had forgotten it and went back, after she saw the Greycliff and everything. ‘O!’ she said, ‘There’s that music lesson!’ The next minute she was running up to the hall on the double-quick.”
“How lovely the sky and lake, and the shore, with its trees and cliffs, look when everything is safe and happy!” said Lilian, who was sitting in the bow, watching the water and the clouds, and thinking of Philip.
“Were you thinking of the ‘Wreck of the Hesperus’?” asked Isabel, who sat next.
“No, I was thinking of the boys and of how quickly sometimes things can change.”
Isabel patted Lilian’s hand. Quietly the girls sat as the boat cut through the water and rocked a little when Mickey turned it about to take them back. Nobody felt like singing, but if they had, Betty, lying in the woods, could not have heard them.