Sure enough, as the aircraft came trundling out of the tent there were letters to be seen indistinctly on the under side of the lower planes. Ethel Blue clasped her hands nervously; but Mr. Emerson was speaking calmly to her, and Mr. Graham was taking a last look over the machine so that she felt sure that everything would be secure, and Aunt Marion and the children were smiling just the other side of the ropes, and Ethel Brown was waiting for her to come back so that she could have her turn, and above all, the words of the good Bishop rang through her mind. "Don't let your imagination run away with you."
Of a sudden she became perfectly cool, and when Mr. Graham helped her into the little seat and fastened a strap around her waist she laughed heartily at his joke about the number of holes difference between the size of her waist and that of the last passenger.
Then he climbed beside her, and the machine began to move clumsily forward as the men ran it down to the water.
"Hold tight," came a voice that was strong and kind.
The water splashed in her face and she knew that the hydroplane was pretending it was a duck.
Then came the kind voice again.
"We're going to rise now. Open your eyes."
She obeyed and of a sudden there thrilled through her the same delightful sensation she had felt in her dreams when she had been a bird and had soared higher and higher toward the sky. Then she had wept when she wakened to realize that it had not happened at all. Now it was truly happening. She was up, up, up in the air; the water was shining beneath her; the hilly land was growing flatter and flatter as she looked down upon it. Trees seemed like shrubs, boats like water beetles. A motor boat that had tried to race them was left hopelessly behind.
"It's Bemus Point," she screamed into Graham's ear, and he smiled and nodded.
"We're going to turn," he shouted back.