“Oh, hello, Mrs. Pixley!” exclaimed Rosa. “So it’s you! However did you get caught over here?”
“I didn’t—didn’t get caught at all. It was that brazen girl—”
“Orilla?” asked Rosa.
“No one else. Just Orilla. The sassy little thing—”
Nancy was just pulling in to land when it seemed to her that the voice sounded oddly familiar. Then she caught sight of the excited woman’s face.
“Oh, hello!” she too exclaimed. “You’re the lady with the grape juice bottle—the one that exploded in the train!” Nancy declared in astonishment.
“Of all things! I want to know! And you’re the little girl who tried to help me! Rosalind Fernell, is this girl visiting you?” demanded she whom Rosa had called Mrs. Pixley.
“Why, of course. She’s my cousin, Nancy Brandon from out Boston way. How did you know her?”
A rather sketchy account of the train incident was then furnished in a dialogue between Nancy and Mrs. Pixley, the latter at the same time gathering up pails and baskets and preparing to get into the boat.
“I came over here for berries,” she explained. “I’ve a sick lady who would have blueberries, and I knew I’d get them here. Orilla had the launch—Mr. Cowan’s, you know, Rosa, and she ran me over here like a streak. Promised to be back by five but here it is—What time is it, anyway?”