"Omar Khayyam is out in the wilderness somewhere," Eliza informed her girl friend, "with his book of verses and his jug of wine, I suppose."
"Mr. O'Neil?"
"Yes. But he'll be back soon, and meanwhile you are to come up and see our paradise."
"It—looks terribly wet," Natalie ventured. "Perhaps we'd better wait until the rain stops."
"Please don't," Dan laughed. "It won't stop until autumn and then it will only change to snow. We don't have much sunshine—"
"You must! You're tanned like an Indian," his sister exclaimed.
"That's rust! O'Neil wanted to get a record of the bright weather in Omar, so he put a man on the job to time it, but the experiment failed!"
"How so?"
"We didn't have a stop-watch in town. Now come! Nobody ever catches cold here—there isn't time."
He led the two girls ashore and up through the town to a moss-green bungalow, its newness attested by the yellow sawdust and fresh shavings which lay about. Amid their exclamations of delight he showed them the neatly furnished interior, and among other wonders a bedroom daintily done in white, with white curtains at the mullioned windows and a suite of wicker furniture.