“There is an old rowboat in the barn. I daresay that Thomas, the coachman, will take you out rowing sometimes after he has finished his work,” said Aunt Carry kindly.
“Do you swim?” inquired Aunt Rebecca, failing to note her niece’s bewildered expression.
“Like a duck. I’m quite as much at home on the water as on land. I’ve had a sailboat since I was thirteen, and most of our summers have been spent at Buzzard’s Bay.”
“But you’re a young lady now,” said Aunt Rebecca.
Mabel looked from one to the other as though she were speculating as to what these new protectors were like. “Am I?” she asked with a smile. “I must remember that, I suppose; but it will be hard to change all at once.” Thereupon she stepped lightly to the edge of the cliff that she might enjoy more completely the view while she left them to digest this qualified surrender.
“‘No pent-up Utica contracts her powers,’” murmured Miss Rebecca, who was fond of classic verse.
“It is evident that we shall have our hands full,” answered Miss Carry. “But she’s fresh as a rose, and wide-awake. I’m sure the dear girl will try to please us.”
Mabel did try, and succeeded; but it was a success obtained at the cost of setting at naught all her aunts’ preconceived ideas regarding the correct deportment of marriageable girls. The knockabout was forthcoming shortly after she had demonstrated her amphibious qualities by diving from the rocks and performing water feats which dazed her anxious guardians. Indeed, she fairly lived in her bathing-dress until the novelty wore off. Thomas, the coachman, who had been a fisherman in his day, announced with a grin, after accompanying her on the trial trip of the hired cat-boat, that he could teach her nothing about sailing. Henceforth her small craft was almost daily a distant speck on the horizon, and braved the seas so successfully under her guidance that presently the aunts forbore to watch for disaster through a spyglass.
She could play tennis, too, with the best, as she demonstrated on the courts of The Beaches Club. Her proficiency and spirit speedily made friends for her among the young people of the colony, who visited her and invited her to take part in their amusements. She was prepared to ride on her bicycle wherever the interest of the moment called her, and deplored the solemnity of the family carryall. When her aunts declared that a wheel was too undignified a vehicle on which to go out to luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at five-o’clock tea to read aloud the latest books; but her amiability and natural gayety were like sunshine in the house. She talked freely of what she did, and she had an excellent appetite.
“She’s as unlike the girls of my day as one could imagine, and I do wish she wouldn’t drive about the country bareheaded, looking like a colt or a young Indian,” said Miss Rebecca pensively one morning, just after Mabel’s departure for the tennis-court. “But I must confess that she’s the life of the place, and we couldn’t get on without her now. I don’t think, though, that she has done three hours of solid reading since she entered the house. I call that deplorable.”