The women were too busy to take any notice of the children when they returned except to ask them if they had a good swim.
“I feel like reading,” Maida said with a determined air. She marched into the library. “There’s a book here I haven’t read for a long time, At the Back of the North Wind.” She went on as though talking to herself. “It’s one of the loveliest stories I ever read. I don’t know but what it’s my favorite of all. I feel like reading it now. It’s so cool ... there’s a great beautiful woman in it ... the North Wind....” Her voice melted into silence, as her hand seized a worn brown book. She dropped into one of the big chairs; seemed to forget entirely about her companions.
The others—partly because there seemed nothing else to do—followed her example.
“Oh, here’s A Journey to the Centre of the Earth!” Dicky announced joyously. “I haven’t seen it since Maida took it to Europe.” He absorbed himself in the big thick volume.
Rosie and Laura contented themselves respectively with Little Men and Little Women, and Harold began for the third time Kidnapped. But Arthur found a newly published book describing the exploration of Africa in a flying machine. He pored over it; gradually became absorbed.
It had been late afternoon when they returned. Nearly an hour drifted by. That coolness, which announces the approach of dusk, set in.
“Well,” Maida said at last, breathing a long relieved sigh, “I’ve got rid of my temper. If I hadn’t taken a book when I did, I’m sure I’d have burst into pieces. If everybody has read all he wants to, let’s try the tennis court.”
They tried the tennis court (although only Maida and the two Lathrops played tennis) but to such good effect and with so great a fascination that they returned to it after supper. Arthur, as was to be expected with his coolness and game sense, progressed rapidly under Harold’s instructions. The others found it the most difficult thing they had ever attempted. They were hot and tired when finally approaching dark made it impossible for them to see the balls.