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The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; or a Wreck and a Rescue, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 24. His Three Sweethearts |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV. HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS Grace's eyes filled with tears of sheer weakness, but she brushed them away impatiently. Then she read, brokenly at first, then radiantly as the marvelous truth came home to her.
"Never mind!" cried the joy incarnate that was Betty, putting an arm about her. "Just wait till you hear what he says later on. Go on, Gracie." "'And when I opened them there was Mrs. Ford's
"'Then I pulled out the picture of the most "'Do you know what I'm going to do the first
"That's all you get," she cried, "the rest belongs to me. Oh, girls, did you ever hear such wonderful news? Allen strong and well and Will recovering splendidly, and both of them so sweet and loyal. Oh, I could kiss that beautiful red-haired angel who brought all this happiness to us. Where is he? Has he gone back again?" "Yes, he has, and what do we care!" cried Grace wildly, her face radiant. "Amy, you little goose, you're not crying are you? Don't you know there isn't a thing in the world to cry about? Come on--laugh, you sweet, comfy, little thing. Don't you know that Will is getting better and keeps our pictures under his pillow? That darling, wonderful, adorable boy. Great heavens!" She stopped suddenly and a dismayed expression crept over her face. "Excuse me, please," and she was racing up the stairs, leaving the girls to look after her, bewildered. "What in the world," began Betty, when Amy lifted a face, shining radiantly through her tears. "Don't you know?" she said with an understanding born of her wonderful happiness. "Grace has gone to tell her mother. You really can't blame her for being in a hurry." A few minutes later Grace called down to Amy. "Come on up, Honey," she commanded. "Mother wants to speak to you." After Amy had left the room, Mollie and Betty looked at each other questioningly. "I wonder if Mrs. Ford is going to welcome Amy into the family," chuckled Mollie. "I hardly think so, since there isn't anything definitely settled yet," said Betty absently. She was thinking of Allen and what he had said in the part of his letter she would not let Grace read. Her eyes shone mistily and her heart sang. Allen, her Allen, was safe, and, oh, those wonderful things he had said! "It must be nice to be as happy as they are," Mollie said, with a little sigh, and with a start Betty came out of her preoccupation. "Oh, Mollie, dear, I--I forgot," she confessed, putting an arm about her chum. "I was so selfishly taken up with my own happiness that I didn't think!" "It isn't your fault," said Mollie, smiling bravely. "You just can't be happy enough to suit me. You know that, don't you, Betty?" "Of course I do, you perfect brick!" said Betty, hugging her fondly. "But we can't any of us be really happy until we know you are. But even that is coming out all right, I'm sure of it," she finished gayly, her old optimism fully restored. Mollie started to shake her head moodily, thought better of it, and smiled instead. "I won't be a death's head at the feast," she told herself savagely. "I suppose I'm awfully wicked, but now that they are all so happy, it makes me feel dreadfully lonesome. I'm glad from my very heart for them, of course. But, oh, Paul! Oh, little Dodo! If you will only come back to Mollie, she will never go away from you again, never, never!" Dinner that night for the other girls was a joyful occasion. The girls dressed up in their prettiest and best, Mrs. Ford and Betty cooked a most appetizing supper, and if it had not been for the one dark cloud still hanging over them, the evening that followed would have been the happiest they had ever spent. Mollie kept her promise to herself and entered into the gayety with the best of them, and no one--except Betty, perhaps--realized how much she was suffering. However, when the lights were out that night and everybody but herself was asleep, Mollie's brave barrier broke down and she sobbed miserably into her pillow. "I want to go home!" she cried, heart brokenly. "I can't keep this up day after day! I can't! If I don't hear some good news soon, I'll die--I know I shall." Only the sound of the waves pounding angrily on the shore and the shrilling of a rapidly rising wind answered her, and after a while she sank into a troubled, uneasy sleep. And how could she know as she lay there, restlessly tossing from side to side and muttering incoherently to herself, that the wind and waves were actually sending her an answer which, in her wildest moments, she could never have imagined? Toward morning something, she could not tell what, roused Betty and she sat up suddenly in bed, every nerve taut, every sense alert. The wind had increased in fury while they slept, till now it was howling fiercely about the house, rattling the windows and whistling shrilly through the cracks, which together with the pounding of the waves, made an almost deafening uproar. And the rain! It came down in sheeting torrents and was driven by the rushing wind in maddened gusts against the window panes until it seemed they must give beneath the strain. "What a storm!" cried Betty, pressing her hands against her ears to keep out the noise of it. "I wonder if that was what wakened me." Then, becoming fully awake, she suddenly realized that she was very uncomfortable, and, looking down, discovered that the bed spread was wet. "Mercy, it's raining in all over us!" she tried aloud, and, springing out of bed, ran over to the window and closed it with a bang. When she came back she found Grace sitting up in bed and staring at her. "For goodness sake, what's happening?" asked the latter sleepily: "Is it the end of the world?" "Search me," returned Betty, inelegantly. She had to almost scream to make herself heard above the noise of the storm. Furthermore, her feet were wet and her nightgown was wet, which did not serve to lift her spirits. In fact, she was feeling decidedly grumpy. "The only thing I do know," she shouted, "is that I'm nearly drowned." "Don't you know that getting drowned at night is strictly forbidden?" Grace began severely, but was promptly smothered by an avenging pillow. "Why don't you get in bed?" she asked, when she had succeeded in disentangling herself. Betty was sitting disconsolately on the dry side of the bed, which happened to be that occupied by Grace. "If you want to know, just feel the covers," Betty answered. "Next time I'm going to make you sleep on the side near the window. Think I'll go in and see if Mollie and Amy are drowned yet," she added, starting for the door. "Goodness, but this is a heavy storm!" However, when she started to close the window in the next room she noticed to her surprise that the rain had slackened, had almost stopped. But not so the wind. If anything, it had increased in fury. She was about to turn back and tiptoe out of the room, hoping that she had not roused the girls, when her eye was caught and held by a vivid flash of red somewhere out to sea. Startled, she stood stock still, staring out in the direction from which that light had come. It seemed weird, eery--that lonesome light sending its signal out into the storm-whipped darkness. For that it was a signal, she did not for a minute doubt. Then it came again--green this time--a light that shot up rocketlike toward the sky, then, bursting, dived to instant annihilation in the turbulant water. Another followed, and another, and then the truth came home to Betty. Somewhere out there In that foaming sea a ship had met with disaster, perhaps at this moment was sinking and her crew, were sending out desperate appeals for aid. For a moment she felt almost sick with pity and excitement. Then she controlled herself and ran over to wake the girls. "Mollie! Amy!" she cried, her voice shrill even above the shrieking of the wind. "Wake up, wake up! Oh, why don't you wake up?" as the girls opened sleep-laden eyes and stared at her stupidly. "Wh-what's the matter," stammered Mollie, suddenly sensing almost hysterical excitement in Betty's voice and realizing that something terrible had occurred. "Is anybody sick?" queried Amy almost fretfully, for she had been enjoying the first good sleep she had had in weeks. "No. But somebody may be if we don't hurry up," cried Betty, wild with impatience. "Don't lie there asking foolish questions when people may be dying." "Dying," they echoed, still staring at her stupidly. "There's a wrecked ship out there," Betty explained, her words stumbling over each other as she tried to make the girls understand. "They are sending up signals for help, and if we don't get it for them right away it may be too late. Oh, girls, for all we know, it may be too late now!" Mollie and Amy, at last fully awake and almost as excited as Betty herself, sprang out of bed and rushed to the window to see for themselves the signals the distressed vessel was sending up. _ |
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