"Is your sketch finished?" inquired Winifred, looking up from the sand fort she was building.
"Yes, do you want to see it?" And Jack held out a sheet of foolscap for his friend's inspection. Jack was a very different-looking boy from the pale little cripple of two months before. There was a light in his eyes and a color in his cheeks that no one had ever seen there since the day of his babyhood. The healthy outdoor life in the bracing sea air was doing wonders for him. Winifred examined the sketch admiringly.
"It's perfectly lovely," she announced. "That fishing boat with the man in it looks as natural as can be. I think you will be a splendid artist when you grow up, Jack."
Jack flushed with pleasure at this frank praise.
"I hope I shall," he said, "I want to be. You know my father was an artist."
"You will be an artist and Lulu will be an authoress," said Winifred reflectively. "I wish Betty and I could both be something nice too."
"I'm afraid I shall never be anything in particular, unless it's a housekeeper," remarked Betty from her seat on the bathing house steps. "I like to sweep and dust and cook better than anything else."
"You'll be a greater sewer, I think," said Winifred, with an admiring glance at the stocking her friend was darning. "Mother says she never saw a little girl who could sew as well as you can."
"Perhaps I shall be a trained nurse. I think I should like being a comfort to sick people. I heard Lulu's aunt say the nurse she had when she broke her knee was a great comfort to her."
"Miss Clark was a great comfort to us when mother was ill," said Betty; "mother had a letter from her yesterday. What's the matter, Jack—are mosquitoes biting?"