"Straight as an arrow. Pity you have to tote that suit-case."
"I'm used to carrying luggage. It never bothers me. Good morning."
Without wasting additional words or time, the stranger nodded and started off briskly in the direction indicated. Nevertheless, swiftly as he moved, his eyes missed none of the panorama stretched before him.
The swelling expanse of sea, rising and falling to the rhythm of its own whispered music, caught his ear; he noted the circling gulls that dipped to the crests of the incoming waves or drifted in snowy serenity upon the tide; saw the opalescent flash of the mica-studded sands. Twice he stopped to fill his lungs with the fresh morning air, breathing deeply as if such crystalline draughts were an infrequent and appreciated luxury.
When he reached the beach he halted, glancing up and down its solitary crescent and scanning eagerly the silvered house beyond the channel. Discovering no one in sight, he dragged from the shore a yellow dory, clambered into it, and catching up the oars began to row toward the dwelling silhouetted against the water and the glory of the morning sky.
In the meantime, both Marcia and Sylvia had wakened early and were astir.
The kitchen fire was already snapping merrily in the stove, however, and the table was spread before the latter made her appearance.
She came in, sweater and beret in hand, and carrying a thick envelope with its dashingly scrawled address still wet.
"Why, Sylvia, how you startled me!" Marcia exclaimed. "I did not hear you come down stairs. Why are you up so early?"