"Oh, you're all jealous," remarked Grace, not at all disturbed as she turned back to the mirror once more to pull a curl a little more fetchingly over her ear. "I might have known you would be."
"Goodness, anybody would think she was at Palm Beach or some other show place," cried Mollie, pulling her own plain little cap a trifle lower over her ears. "If you expect an audience, Gracie, I'm afraid you will be disappointed."
"Here I am, trying to give you something good to look at—"
But they would hear no more and hustled her with scant ceremony away from the mirror and out of the door.
"Come on!" cried Betty, taking the stairs two at a time. "Let's see who gets to the water first. I'm betting nine to one on myself."
"Goodness, she's as conceited as you are, Gracie," gasped Mollie, following hard on Betty's footsteps. "Here's my chance to take some of it out of her!"
Grace and Amy, following at not quite such breakneck speed, came out on the porch in time to see two slender, black-clad figures with vivid red and green caps scrambling down the side of the bluff that led to the beach.
As they started after them Mrs. Ford joined them and they ran together to the edge of the bluff. The slope was not quite so gentle as they had thought on the night before, and Mollie and Betty were puffing considerably when they reached the bottom—which they did at almost the same minute.
Then, fleet-footed, they sped across the sand toward the inviting water beyond, while Mrs. Ford, Grace, and Amy clambered down the bluff in their turn.
At the bottom they turned, saw Betty and Mollie reach the water's edge at the same instant—or so it seemed to them—and dash into the green depths. A moment more and the two black figures were lost to sight and only two vivid caps bobbed on the surface of the water.