Two Little Women

"We're to dine with the grownups after to-night," said Dolly; "new thing for me, 'cause always before I've had my supper in the children's dining-room. But Mother says, now I'm fifteen, I can always dine with them, unless they have special company and then we'll have ours up here like this. Isn't this salad good?"

"Perfectly lovely. But, somehow, I feel so queer. It's such a sudden change from the camp table and Maria's flap-jacks."

Dolly laughed. "Yes, it is different. But I like that, Dot, the sudden change I mean. Crosstrees was just right in every way for mountain and camp doings. Now this seashore stunt is altogether different, but I like this, too. And I think it's nice for us to have both kinds, one right after the other."

"So do I," said Dotty, as she contentedly ate her frozen pudding.

CHAPTER XVIII

DOLL OVERBOARD!

The next morning Dotty and Dolly went with the Fayre family to breakfast in the hotel dining-room.

Very fresh and pretty the girls looked, Dolly in a pale blue linen and Dotty in pink linen with a black velvet belt.

The great dining-room was large and airy, and the sunshine and sea breeze came in at the open windows.

The Fayres' table was pleasantly placed overlooking the ocean, and Dotty's black eyes roved round the room in delighted appreciation of the surroundings.

"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, "there are the twin Browns! Did you know they were here, Dolly?"

"I thought they would be; they come here 'most every summer." And Dolly smiled across the room at Tod and Tad, who bobbed their heads and grinned in response.

"I'm glad they're here," Dolly went on; "it's so nice to have some one you know to start you getting acquainted."

"It won't take you long to get acquainted," said Trudy, smiling, "for all the children of your age who are here are waiting for you. I've told several that you were coming, and I expect the Brown boys have made all sorts of plans for your entertainment. We won't bathe to-day until after luncheon; you can spend the morning on the beach or go for a motor ride with me, whichever you like."

As the girls hesitated over their decision, the Brown twins came over to their table and greeted them gaily.

"Thought you girls would never get here," said Tod, though really it mattered little which of them spoke, for they were so precisely alike it was impossible to tell them apart.

"Jolly to see you again," said Tad; "do come out on the beach with us as soon as you finish your breakfast, won't you?"

"Yes," said Dolly; "I guess we won't go with you, Trude, this morning; I want Dotty to get acquainted with the ocean."

And so when the girls left the dining-room, they found not only the Browns, but several other young people waiting on the veranda to escort them down to the beach.

There were general introductions, and as they went down the long flight of the hotel steps, Dolly found herself walking beside a girl named Pauline Clifton.

Pauline was rather tall and seemed to have an air of authority. Though not exactly pretty, she was striking-looking, with brown eyes and hair and a complexion of rosy tan. She wore a white dress and a red sweater and white stockings with red shoes, and she put her hand through Dolly's arm with a decided air of possession.

"I like you already," she said, "and I'm sure we're going to be chums. Are you rich?"

The question struck Dolly as funny, and she turned to look into Pauline's face. But the brown eyes were serious, and evidently the Clifton girl wished an answer and was prepared to rate her new friend accordingly.

"No," said Dolly, returning the frank gaze; "we're not rich. We live in a small town, and we have about everything we want, but I'm sure we're not what you'd call rich. Are you?"

It would never have occurred to Dolly to ask this question, but it seemed to follow naturally after the other's.

"Oh, yes," Pauline said, "we're awfully rich. We live in New York, and my father has a yacht and lots of motor cars and everything."

"I should think you'd have your own summer home, then, and not come to a hotel."

"We have; two of them. One on Long Island and one up in the mountains. But Father takes freaks. I haven't any mother, and he jumps around wherever he feels like it. So he picked this place for August and here we are. There's only me and Carroll, that's my brother. He's that boy on ahead, with his cap on the back of his head."

"Who looks after you; your father?"

"Yes; but he isn't here much. We have a kind of a nurse-governess; that is, she used to be our nurse when we were little and she has always stayed with us. She's a funny old thing, Liza her name is, but she can manage us better than anybody else. Father tried a French governess for me and a German Fraülein, and Carroll has a different tutor about every month, but Liza just stays on through it all. I know all about you from the Brown boys. Aren't they ducks! They told us about you before you came, and about Dotty Rose. Isn't she pretty? You're awfully pretty, too, and you two look lovely together."

Pauline rattled on, scarcely giving Dolly a chance to reply to her observations. Meantime the group had come to a standstill and were selecting a nice place on the beach to spend the morning hours.

Dotty was enchanted with her first real experience of the seashore.

She sat down in the sand with the rest, but quickly made her way to the front of the group and as near as possible to the edge of the waves in her effort to get an unobstructed view of the ocean. The surf was rolling in and the great breakers filled her with awe and delight.

"Come farther back, Dotty," Tad Brown called out, "or you'll get caught by some of those swells."

Dotty drew back just in time to escape a wetting from a big wave whose white foam rolled up the sands to her very feet.

"Isn't it wonderful!" she cried; "I could sit right here all day and never take my eyes off those waves!"

But the sight was not so novel to the others, and they talked and laughed and threw sand at each other and built forts and watched for passing steamers and made plans for future amusements.

"That's the worst of the seashore," said Pauline, discontentedly; "there's so little to do. Just walk the boardwalk or sit on the sand or bathe; that's about all."

"Nonsense, Polly," said her brother Carroll; "there's lots else to do. Going motoring or walking in the woods, and there's a bowling alley at the hotel and tennis courts – there's millions of things to do, only you're such an old grouch you never see the fun of anything."

Pauline paid no attention to this brotherly remark, but said to Dotty, "Come on, let's go for a walk; I want to get acquainted with you."

"Get acquainted here," said Dotty, laughing. "I'm too comfortable to move."

The Brown boys had banked up a big hill of sand behind Dotty, and she leaned back against it, still fascinated by the wonderful blue of the distant ocean sparkling in the sunlight and the mad onrush of the great breakers as they dashed on the shore.

"Then you come," said Pauline to Dolly; "let's go off by ourselves and walk along toward the casino and the shops.

"All right," said Dolly, who was tired of sitting on the sand and quite ready for a walk. Moreover, she was curious to know more of Pauline. She wasn't sure she should like a girl who asked her point blank if she were rich, and yet Pauline didn't seem ostentatious or vulgar, but was quick-witted and full of fun.

The two walked away, leaving the rest of the crowd, some six or eight of them, on the beach.

As the morning passed, others joined the group and some went away, but Dotty remained, still unable to tear herself away from the glorious sea.

"I say, Dot Rose," Tod Brown exclaimed, "you are stuck on that big pond, aren't you? But there are other days coming when you can gaze at it. Come on, now, and let's do something. I'll race you to the end of boardwalk."

"What's there, when you get to the end?" demanded Dotty.

"Nothing much, but some fishermen's shacks and nets and things. Come on and see it. The fishermen are a queer-looking bunch and not very good-natured, but it's fun to tease them. Come on, anyhow."

Dotty got up, somewhat cramped by long sitting, and was glad after all for a brisk walk in the sunshine. They didn't race, but swung along at a good pace, Dotty with her eyes still seaward.