before them; the Bowl seemed to froth
with their laughter, spray creaming around
the bare, sunflushed arms flung above it,
as if the lake itself, in festive mood, were a
sentient sharer in the joy of these daring
June bathers.

"Now--now who wants to dress and
come out in the boats for a study of pond-life
under the microscope?" cried the
Guardian.

"Whoo! Whoo! That--that's a bait
to which the fish always rise," cried one and
another, eagerly splashing ashore blue
of brow and covered with gooseflesh, yet
loath to admit that on this the feathered
Santa Claus' gift of a prematurely perfect
June day the creamy Bowl was still too
emphatically a cooler.

Up the rude sod steps of the cliff they
trooped--a bevy of shivers--fleeing for
warmth and the shelter of the bungalow.

"Oo-oo-oo! I've never been in bathing
so early in the year before," shook out
Pemrose, to whom the experience--the
[[198]]

p197 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p198w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p199

v?