"Uh-huh, that must be it," said Betty, with an unruffled good-nature that made Grace secretly ashamed of herself.
"I'm sorry, Betty," she said after a rather long pause, adding generously: "You don't need to be jealous of anybody."
"Thanks," Betty answered, with a smile. "I knew you didn't mean it, dear."
And so the long hours of the afternoon wore away, dusk came, shrouding the swiftly moving landscape in a veil of mystery. So engrossed were the girls in contemplation of the changing beauty of nature that it seemed almost sacrilege when the blatant lights of the train flashed forth, bringing them violently back to a realization of time and place.
"Don't you want any supper?" Mr. Nelson was asking, in his pleasant voice. "It isn't like the Outdoor Girls to overlook meal time."
"Far be it from us to spoil our good reputation," cried Mollie buoyantly, and away they rushed to the dressing room to wash for supper. Though dining on a train was no novelty to the girls, they never lost the keenness of their first delight in the experience.
"It's fascinating," Mollie remarked once, spearing desperately at an elusive potato as the train jerked and jolted over the rails at sixty miles an hour, "to see how often you can raise your coffee cup without spilling the coffee all over your food!"
On this night at supper Mollie was so screamingly funny that the girls had all they could do to keep their hilarity from making them conspicuous.
Mr. and Mrs. Nelson at a table for two across the aisle smiled indulgently at their charges, and once Mrs. Nelson met her husband's glance and chuckled fondly.
"Pretty nice set of girls?" she said softly.