Was that Billie, she wondered, who gazed back at her from the mirror? For this girl was surely prettier than Billie ever had been. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed under their tan, and her hair, a little tumbled by the breeze from the sea, made an unexpectedly pretty frame for a very lovely face.
The next day the girls insisted that the boys take them out in their motor boat. The boys protested a little, for the sun was acting rather queerly—going under a cloud and staying there sometimes for half an hour on a stretch.
“I don’t know,” said Paul, a doubtful eye on the sky. “It isn’t what you could call a real clear day, girls, and I don’t want to take any chances with you.”
“Oh, we’re not afraid, if you’re not,” sang out Laura teasingly, and he turned round upon her with a scowl.
“I’m not afraid for myself, and I think probably you know that. Just the same——”
“Oh, but here’s the sun!” called Vi suddenly, as the sun burst forth from the cloud and showered a golden glory over everything. “It’s going to be a beautiful day—just beautiful.”
So it was settled, and amid great fun and laughter they picked up the lunch that Connie’s mother prepared for them and started happily off, humming as they went.
As they clambered aboard The Shelling—Paul had named his craft after Captain Shelling, the master of Boxton Military Academy,—the sun went under a cloud again, and this cloud was bigger and blacker than any that had swallowed it before. But Laura’s taunt still rang in Paul’s ears, and he said nothing.
In a little while there was no need for words. The girls began to see for themselves that Paul had been right and that it would have been far better if they had waited till a really clear day.
They had put some distance between them and the mainland when the sun went under a cloud for good, and a cool little breeze began to rise.