The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 18

"Goodness, are you going to commit suicide?" cried Mollie. "If that's what you want, I don't see why you bothered to come away up here."

"Mother, Mother, give me the key, quick," demanded Grace, as they ran around the side of the house and Betty made a face at Mollie. "You haven't forgotten it, have you?"

"No, I tied it on a ribbon around my neck," said Mrs. Ford, with a smile. "I had no intention of forgetting it. Here it is."

"Thank you."

Grace fitted the key in the lock and opened the door, but when she turned, expecting to find the girls at her back, she found that they had deserted her.

They were standing, gazing out over a gleaming white stretch of sand to the shimmering water beyond, absolutely oblivious to everything but the beauty of the scene.

The bluff on which they stood sloped gently down to the beach below.

Once down there, the girls knew they would feel as though they were isolated from all the rest of the world, for the beach was in the form of a semi-circle, surrounded on three sides by rocky bluffs and blocked off in front by the ocean.

"How beautiful!" breathed Betty, as Grace stole up and joined them.

"We've seen a great many wonderful views, but I never saw one to equal this. Just look at the reflection of the sun out there."

"Blood red," murmured Mollie. "That looks like a hot day to-morrow."

"All the more excuse for taking a swim," put in Amy, adding longingly: "I wish it weren't too late now."

"I'm afraid it is," said Mrs. Ford, seizing her opportunity. "We still have to put the cars away and get our provisions and cook supper--"

"Who said 'supper'?" Mollie demanded hungrily. "Mrs. Ford," she added, as they started for the house, "won't you please make Betty make some biscuits?"

"But you make as good biscuits as I do," protested Betty.

"No, I don't, Darling," denied Mollie, putting an arm about her chum.

"And, anyway," she added convincingly, "I can eat more when I don't have to make them!"

The girls were almost as pleased with the interior of the house as they had been with its surroundings. There were odd little pa.s.sages and unexpected window seats such as Betty had dreamed of having in her own little home some day.

The thought brought back the picture of Allen as he had gone away, gallant, hopeful, brave--oh, so brave--and involuntarily she uttered a little sigh.

"Please don't do that," said Grace, as they entered the room they were to have together. "I'm trying my best not to be as gloomy as I feel. But if you begin to sigh, I'll just have to give up and spoil the party."

"I won't," said Betty, trying a little smile before the mirror and doing it pretty successfully. "I didn't mean to that time, only, I was--just thinking."

"I know," said Grace a little petulantly, as she pulled off her hat and threw it on the bed. "It seems to me that's all I'm ever doing--'just thinking.' If I could only really do something! Some time I'll scream aloud!"

"Well, don't you think we're all pretty much in the same fix?" suggested Betty gently, coming over and putting an arm about her.

"I suppose so," she answered, eyes fixed moodily on the floor. "Only the rest of you have only one to worry about, while I--" she stopped, flushed, and began letting down her thick hair. "If I could only cry!"

"I imagine that might help us all," said Betty wistfully, adding, with a touch of her old gayety: "Perhaps I can arrange it after supper."

"What?" asked Grace.

"A cry party," she answered, and the absurdity of it made them both laugh.

In spite of the shadow hanging over them, dinner that night was a great success. Everybody pitched in, and, having acquired ravenous appet.i.tes on their long ride, did the cooking in record time, and of course everything tasted ambrosial.

After dinner they wandered out on the veranda, which was almost as big as the rest of the house put together. It was a wonderful night, with the moon so bright that it shed a magic silver radiance over everything while the lapping of the water came softly up to them.

Suddenly Mollie's hand slipped into Betty's where they stood together looking out.

"On such a night as this," breathed Mollie, scarcely above a whisper, "there should be nothing but peace in the world."

"Should be--yes," agreed Betty, a little bitterly. "But things are not always as they should be!"

CHAPTER XV

THE TELEGRAM

The morning dawned gloriously bright, and at the first ray of the sun the girls were up and dressed and ready for the fun of the day.

"I don't know what I'll do if our trunks don't come," worried Amy, as she took a rather creased white skirt and waist from her suitcase. "I brought only one change and a bathing suit."

"Well, as long as you brought the bathing suit, it's all right,"

returned Mollie, sticking one last pin in her hair. "I intend to live in mine to-day."

"And, anyway, we can't possibly expect the trunks till this afternoon,"

put in Grace; "so I don't see any use in worrying about them now."

"If they don't come to-day, either Mollie or I will go down to the station and see about them," offered Betty, who was looking as sweet and fresh as the morning itself. "We'll probably have to go down and get them anyway, since we expressed them through by train and came by motor ourselves."

"Oh, well, who cares," cried Mollie, stretching her arms above her head and breathing deep of the salt-laden air. "When we get down on that wonderful beach, that looks too good to be true, we'll be away from all the rest of the world and we won't need any clothes but a bathing suit."

"Mother's up," cried Grace, as they stepped out into the hall and smelled the welcome aroma of coffee. "I thought I heard somebody go downstairs a little while ago."

"But we shouldn't have let her get the breakfast," cried Betty. "We brought her up here for a rest, not to wait on us."

"She probably didn't sleep very well," said Grace, thinking of Will. "It really isn't any wonder."

However, Mrs. Ford greeted the girls with a bright smile when they entered the kitchen, and when they remonstrated with her for getting up so early she merely laughed at them.

"Why, I haven't cooked for so long, it's just fun for me," she said lightly, but Grace's loving eyes saw how pale she looked and how sad her eyes were when she was not smiling.

"Game little mother," she whispered to herself.

However, after they had cleared the remains of a remarkably good breakfast away, they asked Mrs. Ford to put on her own bathing suit and take a dip with them.

After a minute's hesitation she agreed, and they ran upstairs eagerly to get ready. They all had black suits, and all but Grace wore snug-fitting rubber caps, designed more for use than looks. Grace wore a rakish little Scottish cap affair that was immensely becoming but not at all comfortable to swim in.

"How do I look?" she demanded complacently, when she turned from a prolonged survey of herself in the mirror and pirouetted slowly before them.