"Also Gerald and—yes, it's Isabel," called Helen, for from her family car a girl in Isabel's green sweater was waving merrily to the incoming craft.
Explanations with details of delays on a sailboat seemed entirely superfluous, and with creditable good sense the stranded party was welcomed home, without the worry of sighs or sobs.
"But why did you go to the city to-day of all days?" Cleo demanded of Isabel. "We have had the event of the season, and you should have been among those present."
"The dentist," explained Isabel, making room for her chums in the car. "Nothing on earth but a tyrannical dentist could drag me away from Sea Crest in mid season."
"Well, I thought it must have been something urgent," Cleo conceded. "But, Izzy love! We have been to Luna Land!"
"You didn't tell us!" charged Elizabeth. She had been to the city with Isabel.
"We didn't know," returned Cleo. "It was an accident—a miraculous accident."
Followed such snatchy bits of explanation as might be given on the short ride home. Isabel and Elizabeth seemed quite as much absorbed in the fact that their friend Neal had a new motor boat as did they in the revelation concerning Luna Land.
The evening attraction of moonlight bathing served to divert, temporarily, the girls' keen interest in holding a True Tred meeting immediately. Every one wanted to go straight back to the island—no dogs had devoured them, no lunatics were discovered up trees, no ghosts had been noticed ambling about the grove, and why had they even hesitated to explore there? Each demanded an answer from each, but none replied.
Moonlight, like all the other released atmospheric beauties, came "double barreled," and crowds flocked to the beach for the novelty of evening bathing.