"Oh, we've the whole day before us," Nan urged, stretching luxuriously in the brilliant sunshine, like a kitten before a hearth. "Miss Jane won't care as long as we don't stay out too late."
"Away dull care and let's be gay!" sang Jo, breaking into the strains of a merry school song. The girls all joined her, and Sadie's protest was heard no more.
They rowed lazily, for, as Nan had said, they had the whole day before them. As they looked toward Laurel Hall they saw three more boatloads of merrymakers push off from the shore.
"They are making for Maple Island," called Doris from Jessie's boat.
"And Kate Speed's one of them," said Sadie, which, Nan suggested, more than half reconciled her to the long trip to Huckleberry Island.
They were more than half an hour on the trip up the lake and on the way they passed several other interesting and picturesque islands.
Nan sighed contentedly.
"I don't think there's another such beautiful spot on the face of the earth," she said.
"Well," judicially from Jo, "I haven't seen a great deal of the earth, but I'll tell it, right from where I sit, that this is good enough for me!"
They at last rounded a turn in the lake, and a shout from Jessie in the boat ahead warned them that they had reached Huckleberry Island.