“Perhaps the motor is out of fix. I thought that perhaps you had come in the _Greycliff_.”
“Now do go and get a good breakfast, Donald, please.”
Protesting at being sent away, Donald yielded and carrying Betty’s empty cup, for she drank the coffee to please him, went into the kitchen to do full justice to such food as remained.
It was not long before Betty heard a boat, then girls’ voices, and knew that the _Greycliff_ had arrived. Donald heard them, too, and joining Betty, went out in front to meet them. There were Cathalina, Hilary, Lilian and Helen, with “Patty” and Miss Perin.
“Oh, Betty, Betty, Betty!” was the chorus. “All the girls wanted to come,” said Lilian, after the first greetings were over, “but Miss Randolph wouldn’t let them. How are you Betty?”
“All right,—a little shaky. Oh, how glad I shall be to go back to the good old every-dayness!”
“You won’t wait to pick a flower or two?”
Mickey was conferring with the captain of the marines, and the Greycliff janitor and his wife, with bags and bundles, hastily packed, were going into the house, where they would stay a few days, or until some one could be found to run the farm. “We’ll send ye a couple o’ hired men tomorry,” said Mickey to the janitor, as he left their dooryard to go back to the boat.
Donald went with the party to the boat, helped Betty into a comfortable seat and said his farewells with rather a sober face.
“I will. I wish I could ask the same of you, but I wouldn’t be very patriotic, would I?”
Several interested marines joined Donald and watched the _Greycliff_ and the girls disappear over the white caps.
Betty, too, watched Donald as long as she could see him, then turned her attention to her friends, who were looking at her with affection.
“I look like a battered war casualty, don’t I?”
“Not very much battered, but pretty pale. You have been through enough to kill you. Weren’t you frightened terribly?” asked Cathalina.
“My fall dulled my intellect, I guess,” laughed Betty. “I was frightened several times and then I got used to it. Was any word sent to father?”
“Fortunately not,” said Cathalina. “Miss Randolph was considering a telegram when they found the word from Louise. She may have sent one; no,—I think that she would wait till we actually had you at Greycliff, then telegraph, so they would not worry if anything were in the papers. When Donald came to the Hall, he said that the woods had been thoroughly covered by the men hunting for you, and by the marines hunting for those men, and that they were going down to White Wings. After they had arrested the men, a hydroplane came nearly to the shore and went away again, seeing their lights, I suppose. Since the only hydroplane anywhere around was at that place they thought some one there must be interested.”