h her, because she,--because _she_
doesn't keep still. That's different!"

A shout made them turn to look down the beach.

A boy, using his hands as a speaking tube, stood looking toward them,
and calling loudly, "Gwen! Gwen!"

"Oh, that's Max Deland," said Gwen. "I'll go and see why he's calling
me."

Without saying "Good-bye," she turned, and raced down the beach, and
Polly and Rose and Sprite stood watching her flying figure.

On, on she ran until at last, they saw that she had reached the boy
who had shouted to her.

Then Princess Polly spoke:

"I wonder why he didn't run to meet her," she said, "instead of
standing stock still and waiting 'till she'd run every step of the
way?"

"I don't wonder," Sprite said, "because I've seen him do that so many
times, and he tells her to 'do this,' and 'do that,' and 'come here,'
and 'go there,' and she does just as he says every time."

"That's queer," Rose said, "because she never lets us tell her even
how to play a new game. The minute we start to tell her how it is
played, she says: 'Oh, I know all about it,' so of course we stop, and
it is Gwen who is always saying, 'Come and do this,' and 'You must do
it,' till we get tired of being 'bossed,' and never doing as we wish.
She didn't do that way to-day. She danced with us, and never once told
us how to do it."

"Why, Polly!" cried Sprite, "she has always known that you were
trained for dancing, and that you know the prettiest dances."

The three little friends still stood watching Gwen and Max.

They seemed to be discussing something upon which they could not
agree, for as they watched, Max violently pointed toward some distant
point on the shore, and stamped his foot, and each time Gwen would
shake her curly head.

The boy seemed determined, and the girl obstinate.

"I wonder what he is telling her to do?" said Sprite, to which Polly
replied:

"I don't. I wonder why she doesn't do it?"

"Yesterday he dared her to go out on an old plank, and she did it and
got a ducking," said Sprite. "P'r'aps it's something like that."

The two figures still stood out clearly, the boy evidently insisting,
and the girl still shaking her head as if unwilling to do as he
wished.

Some bathers came running down to the water, their gay colored caps
covering their hair, their sandals tied with ribbons.

Polly, Rose, and Sprite turned to see them take the first dip, and for
a few moments watched them romping in the surf.