Meanwhile, as they continued to talk in the half-jesting, intimate fashion of two persons who thoroughly understand each other, the big black car ate up the miles that lay between Palm Beach and Las Golondrinas. As the party drew nearer their destination the highly ornamental villas which had lined both sides of the road began to grow fewer and farther apart. They saw less of color and riotous bloom and more of the vivid but monotonous green of the tropics.
They turned at last from the main highway and due east into a white sandy road which ran through a natural park of stately green pines. Under the shadow of the pines the car continued for a mile or so, then broke out into the open and the sunlight again.
“Oh, look!”
Half rising in the seat, Patsy pointed. Ahead of them and dazzlingly blue in the morning sunshine lay the sea.
“How near is our new home to the ocean, Dad?” she asked eagerly.
“There it is yonder.”
Taking a hand briefly from the wheel, Mr. Carroll indicated a point some distance ahead and to the right where the red-tiled roof of a house showed in patches among the wealth of surrounding greenery.
“Why, it’s only a little way from the sea!” Patsy cried out. “Not more than half a mile, I should judge.”
“About three quarters,” corrected her father. “The bathing beach is excellent and there’s an old boathouse, too.”
“Are there any boats?” was the quick question.