“You look like a witch brooding over the deep!” Gladys told her. Ellen was small, with rather sharp features and twinkling eyes, and the insult held a certain amount of truth.
“If I were to say what _you_ all look like it would need a vocabulary unbefitting a vice-captain!” retorted Ellen. “Remember, young ladies, you are not allowed out without a keeper so that you may indulge in unseemly horse-play! Your conduct is sadly lacking in either deportment or——”
“She’s drowning in her own eloquence!” remarked Nita. “Come, and we’ll save her, girls!” They made a rush at the orator, who tried to escape up the steps, but being caught by what Jo termed “the hind leg,” was ignominiously hauled back into the water, where she became the victim of all known methods of rescuing the apparently drowned. Then, not because the sea had lost any of its charm, but because time was slipping away, they swam back to the dressing-boxes, making as quick a toilet as their soaked hair would permit.
“Rubber caps are a delusion and a snare if you once happen to go under water,” remarked Helen disgustedly as they walked along the pier to the shore. “Ugh! another drop has slid down my back!”
“Can’t be helped.” Gladys shook her own lank and dripping locks. “Anyhow, we’re all alike—except the twinses. They have an altogether unfair advantage!”
The twins grinned. They had worn their hair close-cropped until they came to school, following an attack of fever in which, like good twins, they had indulged together, and their hair had been compulsorily shorn. It was growing again now, but the growth was slow, and their dark locks clustered about their necks in curls that refused to reach their shoulders. It made them look younger than they were, and had the effect of enhancing a resemblance to each other that the School declared little short of criminal. Even Miss Dampier often had distressing doubts as to whether she were dealing at the moment with Jean or Jo. The twins were quick to recognize any signs of doubt as to their identity, and had never been known to relieve such doubts unless compelled by authority.
“Never mind,” said Ellen Webster. “We’ll soon be hot enough to welcome anything dripping down our backs. Who says ices?”