Every one said ices, with one voice. They sauntered to the café perched half-way down the big pier, and voiced their demands, following the ices with tea and many cakes, regardless of consequences. Then Helen, with the recklessness of one about to leave, ordered raspberries and cream all round; and at length, sustained and refreshed, the Merriwiggians turned their steps homeward. The crowd on the pier was beginning to thin: people were going home to tea, and only the fishing enthusiasts, who sit on the edge of the pier and angle perpetually for fish that never bite, showed no signs of moving. On the beach mothers were collecting children, wet, sandy, and tired. The trams were crowded, and the girls obtained places with difficulty, “strap-hanging” until they changed from the beach tram into the one that took them close to the School.
“It’s been lovely,” Jo said, as the iron gate of Merriwa closed behind them. “And I don’t want tea one bit!”
Nobody did. There was, indeed, a general shudder at the bare idea of a meal.
“We’ve got to face it, anyhow,” said Helen. “And you’d better all take notice that we’ve only about five minutes to change!”
The urgency of this discovery mastered any more personal feelings. They scattered to their rooms, in a wild endeavour to achieve the well-groomed appearance that Miss Dampier was unfeeling enough to demand, in all circumstances. A junior, still in the flush of hero-worship that surrounds tennis championships, hailed the twins as they reached their door.
“Letter for you in the rack. Shall I get it for you?”
“Oh, do, there’s a good kid!” Jo gasped, struggling with buttons as she ran. “Give it to us at tea—we haven’t time to sneeze!”
The letter lay between them throughout tea, while they gallantly tried to obey Ellen Webster’s whispered injunction at the door—“Assume an appetite, though you have it not!” Luckily, the night was hot enough to cause a general disinclination for food, and no one in authority paid any special attention to the lack of interest in the meal manifested by the bathing party. Jean and Jo cast longing glances at their letter, wishing that the time of release would come, and set them free to read it.
It was a rather thick letter, addressed in their father’s firm writing in the style in which he always addressed them—“Miss J. Weston.” Mother might give them the individual Jean or Josephine, or lump them together as “The Misses Weston,” but Father held that these distinctions, with twins, were merely waste of time, since anything he had to say was sure to be said to both. A letter from him was rather a rarity, and the twins puzzled a little over it as tea dragged slowly on.