"Yes! We've got to, I tell you. If not, Jake will——"
"Hush! No names!" cautioned the woman.
Meanwhile the outdoor girls, having raced to the goal, an old boat half-buried in the sand, came to a panting halt. Mollie had won, chiefly because she had started off before the others, for Betty was accounted the best runner of her chums.
"Well, what does it all mean?" asked Grace, who came limping in last, for, in spite of her expressed promise to the contrary, she still wore those high-heeled shoes. "You act as though you had run away from the plague, Betty!"
"And so we did, my dear. The plague of fish! Ugh! I can almost taste them—fishy, oily fish!"
"And she offered us—milk!" added Mollie.
"It would probably have been—cod-liver oil," spoke Betty, with a shudder of repugnance. "Oh, let me get a breath of real air!" and she turned her face to the misty wind of the sea.
"But what does it all mean?" asked Amy, in rather bewildered tones. "Why did we run away?"
"That's what I want to know," put in Grace. "And I believe—yes, I have dropped my chocolates. Oh, how provoking! I'm going back after them."
"You're going to do nothing of the sort!" declared Betty, with a firmness she seldom manifested.