as though it were asking for something," said Suzanna,
"a kind of sad asking."

"Now," said Mr. Bartlett, leaning across and speaking softly to her,
"suppose, Suzanna, you think for a moment that it's a happy sound and
see how almost at once it becomes a happy sound."

Suzanna listened intently. Then her face brightened. "Why, it is a happy
murmuring," she cried. "Just as though it had to sing and sing all day
long."

"Exactly," said Mr. Bartlett.

"Well, then," said Suzanna, quickly drawing the deduction, "it's really
just in me to make it say happy things or sad things."

"Exactly," said Mr. Bartlett again, and then they all rose and went back
to the cottage.

Since the trunks which contained the beach outfits did not arrive till
late that afternoon, the children did not go down to the sands till the
next morning. Then with joyous hearts and eager feet, they set off,
Suzanna, Maizie, Peter, Graham, and Daphne; Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett
following more slowly.

A bath house reserved for their use stood, door wide open. They entered,
discarded their coats and immediately appeared again clad in their
pretty bathing suits for the water.

But when they reached the sands, already alive with gay children who
were building houses or running gaily about, and with happy shrieks
wading into the water, the Procter children stood awed, unable to speak,
so many emotions beat within them.

Maizie was the first to recover her power of speech. "There's a girl
down there with a shovel and pail like mine," she said.

And that broke the spell. Peter and Graham walked bravely out into the
water, finally reaching their necks as they went farther and farther
into the ocean. But the little girls contented themselves by simply
wetting their feet and with every wave dashing up to them, leaping back
with glad little cries. As the morning advanced, they returned to the
older group and sat on the sand.

On the sixth day of their stay all the children were trying bravely to
swim, clinging it must be confessed rather desperately to Mr. Bartlett
and the beach man, secured to help them; but when he procured for them
large water wings, they soon struck out for themselves. Peter really
learned to swim before either of his sisters, and one morning he went
out as far as the end of a quarter-mile pier.

They all grew rosy and strong, out in the fine air nearly every moment
as they were. Some afternoons they went fishing, and, with a strange
re