"Cleaner!" muttered Blanche, but if Mrs. Rand heard, she pretended not to. Dee's grande dame manner had had its effect and she now treated us with great cordiality, shaking hands and expressing a wish to see all of us again at the beach and complimenting us again and again on the neatness of the cottage. She sent messages to "that so-called paw" and was almost genial as she bade us good-bye.
Mary and I managed to wait until she got away before we were shaken by the inevitable storm of giggles. "All of that row about an old can-opener," gasped Mary, "and after all it was a can't-opener."
CHAPTER XXII.
GOOD-BYE TO THE BEACH.
How we did hate to say good-bye to Willoughby! When I remembered my feelings on our arrival and compared them to my feelings on departure, I could hardly believe I was the same person or that it was the same place. I no longer missed trees and grass; my eyes were accustomed to the glare; and as for the dead monotony of sand and water: I had learned to see infinite variety in the colour of the land and sea; no two days had been alike, no two hours, indeed. Dum had taught me to see these shifting effects, and now land and water and sky instead of seeming as they had at first, like three hard notes that always played the same singsong tune, were turned into three majestic chords that with changing and intermingling could run the whole gamut of harmony.
We had spent a perfect month with so little friction that it was not worth naming, and the friendship of the five girls was stronger than ever. It would be impossible to sleep five on a porch, with cots so close together that the covers had no room to slip between, without finding out each other's faults and virtues.
Dee, for instance, who was an exceptionally rapid dresser, had a habit of using more than her share of hair-pins. She always insisted that they were hers or that she had not used them, and she would not take down her hair to see. Then when she finally undressed at night and plaited her thick, blue-black rope, she would be much abashed as we claimed our share of hair-pins.
Mary Flannagan snored louder and more persistently than anyone I have ever known; she also had a habit of talking in her sleep.