"Oh, that's all right," said Amy with a smile that seemed always full of warm fellowship and feeling. "I know just how you feel."
"Well, I feel wretched—there's no denying that," spoke Betty with a sigh. "To think that I should run you girls on a sand bar, almost on our first trip. Isn't it horrid?"
"Well, we'll forgive her if she'll run us off again; won't we, girls?" asked Grace, searching among the cushions.
"Here it is," said Amy with another of her calm smiles, as she produced the box of candy for which Grace was evidently searching.
"Thanks. Well, Betty, are you going to get forgiven?"
"Which means am I going to get you off this bar? Well, I'm going to do my best. Wait until I take a look at the engine."
"What's the matter with it?" asked Mollie quickly, a new cause for alarm dawning in her mind.
"Nothing, I hope," replied Betty. "But we ran on the bar so suddenly that it may be strained from its base."
"Is it a baseball engine?" asked Grace languidly. She seemed to have recovered her composure now. Whether it was the fact of her chocolates being safe, or that there was no immediate danger of sinking, or that no alligators were in sight, was not made manifest, but she certainly seemed all right again.
"It's enough of a ball game to have a base, and to be obliged to hold it," said Betty with a smile, as she bent over the machinery, testing the bolts and nuts that held the motor to the bottom of the boat.