"Well, you needn't scare me to death," protested Betty, taking one hand from the wheel to rub the arm Grace had clutched.
"But I love it so," Grace cried, standing up only to be jerked back into her seat as Betty swung round the curve. "It's such a wonderful place!"
"Is that it up on the hill?"
"Yes," answered Grace, standing up in earnest now. "Turn up the drive—it leads to the garage at the back. And, Betty, the house stands on a little bluff looking out over the ocean. Do you hear it—the ocean I mean, not the house, Silly!"
The road that they had traveled from Deepdale to Bluff Point had led across country, Deepdale being in the interior, so that the girls had scarcely realized how close they were coming to the coast.
Now, as Betty stopped the car at the back of the quaint little cottage, that sound of romance and mystery, the soft lapping of water with the deeper undertone of waves against rock came up to her and she threw back her head with a little bubbling laugh.
"I don't wonder you love it, Gracie dear," she said. "I do already. It's glorious."
They jumped out and ran back to meet Mollie's car, which was puffing like an old man up the steep grade.
"The ocean! The ocean!" cried Betty ecstatically, as she opened the doors and the girls tumbled out. "Do you smell it? Do you hear it? Oh, girls, hurry up, I can't wait to feel it!"
"Goodness, are you going to commit suicide?" cried Mollie. "If that's what you want, I don't see why you bothered to come away up here."