"Let's not go far," she suggested, "let's just drift—and talk." Sally herself was privately only too willing. Dipping her paddle only occasionally to keep from floating in shore, she nodded another approving assent. But her country unaccustomedness to conversation held her tongue-tied for a time.

"Where's Genevieve?" demanded Doris.

"Oh, I put her to bed at half-past six most always," said Sally. "She's usually so sleepy she can't even finish her supper. But I miss her evenings. She's a lot of company for me."

"She's a darling!" agreed Doris. "I just love the way she cuddles up to me, and she looks so—so appealing when she tucks that little thumb in her mouth. But, Sally, will you forgive my saying it?—you look awfully nice tonight." Sally turned absolutely scarlet in her appreciation of this compliment. Truth to tell, she had spent quite an hour over her toilet when Genevieve had been put to bed, and had[Pg 28] even gone flying to the village to purchase with her little hoard of pocket-money the pink ribbon for her hair.

[Pg 28]

"But I wonder if you'd mind my saying something else," went on Doris, eyeing her companion critically. "You've got the loveliest colored hair I ever saw, but I think you ought never to wear any colored ribbon but black on it. Pink's all right for very light or very dark people, but not for any one with your lovely shade. You don't mind my saying that, do you? Sometimes other people can tell what looks best on you so much better than you can yourself."

"Oh, no. I don't mind—and thank you for telling me," stammered Sally, in an agony of combined delight that this dainty new friend should approve her appearance and shame that she had made such an error of judgment in selecting the pink ribbon. Mentally, too, she was calculating just how long it would take her to save, from the stray pennies her mother occasionally gave her, enough to purchase the suggested black one. While she was figuring[Pg 29] it out, Doris had something else to suggest:

[Pg 29]

"Sally, let's be good friends. Let's see each other every day. I'm awfully lonesome when I'm not with Mother,—even more so than you, because you've got Genevieve. I expect to stay here all summer, and they say there are very few young folks coming to 'The Bluffs.' It's mostly older people there, because the younger ones like the hotels on the ocean best. So things won't be much better for me, even during the 

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