“May I bring the girls with me?” petitioned Patsy. “My chum, Beatrice, saw you in the thicket the first time we came to the beach. She is longing to know you.”
“Beatrice; it is the pretty name. She is perhaps that one with the true face and the brown curls. I saw her look at me that day. She is not so pretty as you; yet she is pretty. So, also, are those other two girls who look alike and still not alike.”
“They are sisters; Mabel and Eleanor,” informed Patsy. “At home, away up North, they live next door to me. When I come here to-morrow I will tell you more about myself. I must go now. You haven’t said yet whether I might bring my chums with me to-morrow.”
“I wish it,” was the brief consent. “Now I will show you the way.”
It was not as far as Patsy had thought to the sandy road. Guided by Dolores, who knew her ground thoroughly, Patsy found jungle travel easy, even in her bare feet. The two girls finally came out on the road about an eighth of a mile above the beach.
“Thank you ever so much for showing me the way.”
Patsy paused in the middle of the road, her hand extended. Impulsively she leaned forward and lightly kissed Dolores.
The vivid color in the girl’s cheeks deepened at the unexpected caress. A mist sprang to her glorious dark eyes. She caught Patsy’s hand in both her own. Bending, she touched her lips to it. “Oh, you are most simpatica!” she murmured, then turned and darted away, leaving Patsy standing in the middle of the white, sandy road, looking tenderly after the lithe, fleeing form until a tangle of green hid it entirely from her view.