beach. Antonia's appearance was much noticed.
Pearl heard an elderly gentleman murmur to Mrs. Conway, "Your little daughter is lovely--lovely. Is beauty contagious?" And he gave a glance at Pearl, who was looking perfectly unconscious but caught Mrs. Conway's bitter reply: "Thank you; I see you feel she was never exposed to it before."
For the first time in her life Antonia was the center of a group of boys--many of them in their first long trousers; all with stiff turned-down collars, white against the sunburn and freckles of their summer complexions. They were telling her, with the perfect candor of youth, that she might have been the recipient of their attentions long before this if she had been dressed as she was dressed today.
"How could I go round the links with a girl without shoes?" one conservative had wailed, revealing a hidden struggle. And Bill Temple, Caroline's elder brother, a year older than Durland, and likely to be junior tennis champion, had said loudly in passing, "Gee, the kid certainly looks great in that get-up!" If he had composed "Helen, thy beauty is to me----" all in her honor he could not have given her a fuller joy.
Pearl was so happy that she allowed her generous nature to lead her into making an acknowledgment to Williams. She had just heard him agree to motor to New York after dinner that evening--his stay was a question of only a few hours now, and on the crowded beach----