The results of that boating excursion were nothing short of “nuts and honey” to Mrs. Dr. Dryer. Never in all her life had she been blessed with so magnificent an opportunity to say: “I told you so!”
She said it, too, very abundantly, and what puzzled her, as well as took away half the sweetness of her triumph, was the fact that her unsubmissive stepdaughter did not seem to be in the slightest degree cast down about it.
In fact, no sooner had Effie put on dry clothing than she seemed to look back upon her day of danger and disaster as one whose happiness had been absolutely without a cloud.
She praised the drive, the sail, the lunch, the boys; she even expressed a decided liking for a compulsory bath in Skanigo. And then she put on an obstinate fit of silence and refused to say another word about it.
The rest of the population of Ogleport required further time and more accurate information.
Their first vague impressions had been to the effect that Zebedee Fuller had swum, five separate times, half the width of Skanigo, each time bringing back with him a half-drowned man or woman, and that then he had gone again and towed home the boat.
There were manifest flaws in that narrative, however, and little by little the truth was presented and accepted; but even then Zeb remained a hero, as usual.
Somewhat different was the state of Mrs. Brayton’s mind after hearing Sibyl’s account of her adventure, and who shall blame her if, right at the supper-table and before they had a chance to sit down, the good motherly, excited lady half-weeping gave to Bar Vernon and Val Manning a dozen grateful kisses?
Hysterical?
Say it for yourself, then!