Page:Wha Katy Did Next - Coolidge (1886).djvu/195

 is after weeks of gloom! I shall never forget how the Mediterranean looked when we saw it first,—all blue, and such a lovely color. There ought, according to Morse's Atlas, to have been a big red letter T on the water about where we were, but I did n't see any. Perhaps they letter it so far out from shore that only people in boats notice it.

Now the dusk is fading, and the odd chill which hides under these warm afternoons begins to be felt. Amy has received a message written on a mysterious white pebble to the effect—

Katy was interrupted at this point by a crunching step on the gravel behind her.

"Good afternoon," said a voice. "Polly has sent me to fetch you and Amy in. She says it is growing cool."

"We were just coming," said Katy, beginning to put away her papers.

Ned Worthington sat down on the cloak beside her. The distance was now steel gray against the sky; then came a stripe of violet, and then a broad sheet of the vivid iridescent blue which one sees on the necks of peacocks, which again melted into the long line of flashing surf.