The Priceless Pearl - 10 - Alice Duer Miller - Web Novel

She darted down the narrow boardwalk toward an immense hole in the sand, scattering a band of neatly dressed children, much as the effete Romans were scattered by the first onslaught of the northern barbarians. Pearl could not help laughing as she saw children run to their governesses or snatched back by their nurses; but the next moment she was sorry, for she saw that it was being said in various tongues that Antonia was quite the worst brought-up child in the world.

Pearl was nothing if not a partisan, and she was already completely on Antonia's side.

She and Antonia were supposed to bathe early so as to leave the two Conway bathhouses free for Mrs. Conway and Dolly when they appeared at a later and more fashionable hour. "Everything in our family is done for Dolly," said Antonia when she was finally dragged out of the water.

"It makes me tired the way mother indulges every whim of hers."

Rebellious or not, however, Antonia was dressed--as much dressed as she ever was, which was about three-quarters as much as other little girls--by half after twelve.

She and Pearl went back to the beach and sat down under the red-and-black-striped umbrella which the life-saving man had stuck in the sand for them as if he were about to do a pole vault with it. And presently Durland, ready for his swim, came and plopped down beside them, and immediately a girl in a one-