“Isn’t there a road to this beach wide enough for the automobile to run on?” Miss Martha inquired of her brother at breakfast the next morning, in a tone of long-suffering patience.
“None that I know of,” was the discouraging reply. “That stretch of jungle above the beach extends for miles along the coast. The only road to the sea in this vicinity is the one cut through the woods by old Fereda. It’s hardly more than a path. Too bad you don’t ride, Martha. You could make it easily on horseback.”
“Never,” was the firm assertion. “I wouldn’t trust myself to the best behaved horse that ever lived. I suppose I shall have to resign myself to walking.”
“You needn’t go with us, if you’d rather not, Auntie,” broke in Patsy. “Dad says it’s perfectly safe for us to go alone. We’re on our own property all the way to the beach, you know.”
“That is not the point,” calmly disagreed Miss Carroll. “I feel it my duty to accompany you whenever your father is unable to do so. I dare say the sea breeze will benefit me. I merely dislike the idea of this tramp through the brush and weeds.”
“Oh, the road’s as smooth as can be,” hastily assured Beatrice. “It’s only narrow, that’s all. It’s really a beautiful walk, Miss Martha. I am sure you will like it.”
“I doubt it,” was the pessimistic response. “Nevertheless I shall go.”
Half an hour after breakfast a luggage-laden procession set off beachwards. Miss Martha brought up the rear with Mabel, eye-glasses firmly astride her nose, a book in one hand, her white parasol held over her head at a dignified angle. Beatrice and Eleanor walked just ahead, while Patsy buoyantly led the van, calling continually back over her shoulder to her companions with every fresh feature of interest her bright eyes picked up along the way.
“I must say the walking is better than I had expected to find it,” was Miss Carroll’s grudging opinion as the party at length emerged from the woods onto the sands. “Walking, as an exercise, has never appealed to me, however.”
“If you walk down to the beach and back with us every day, Auntie, you’ll soon become a champion walker,” Patsy said lightly.