“A fine idea,” replied Grace, unabashed. “I never gave you credit for so much thoughtfulness, Mollie dear. Have a chocolate?”
Mollie sniffed disdainfully.
“Keep your old chocolates,” she said. “The next time you offer me one I’ve a good mind to throw the whole box overboard.”
“Just try it,” said Grace, lazily. “You’d have to toss me over, too, you know.”
“Shouldn’t mind in the least,” said Mollie, at which the Little Captain laughed and Amy Blackford chuckled.
“Talk about wild animals,” cried Betty, gayly. “We won’t need any with you and Grace about, Mollie dear. Two wildcats are enough.”
“Did you hear what she called us?” asked Grace, feeling abused, but Mollie was looking the other way.
“We’ve gone a pretty long way down the river,” she said. “Look, Betty, isn’t that the new lake steamer, the General Pershing?”
Betty, who had been too absorbed in plans for the summer to notice particularly where she was going, followed the direction of Mollie’s pointing finger.
Suddenly her breath caught in a gasp and a thrill of apprehension swept over her. The steamer was indeed the General Pershing, the great shining new boat which plied up and down the lake and the river, and it was coming toward them at what, to the Little Captain, seemed an appalling rate of speed.