"I'll get over that," muttered the boy to himself.
"And your sister is just as bad!" scolded Linda, giving way to her dreadful temper as Nan and Bess had seen her do on the train. "I'll show you both that you can't treat me in any such way. I've always stood up for your dunce of a sister. That's what she is, a dunce!"
"If you were a boy, I'd thrash you for saying that!" declared Walter, quietly, though in a white heat of passion himself.
"Oh! oh!" shrieked Linda. "So you threaten to strike me, do you? If I tell my father _that_----"
"Oh, tell him!" exclaimed Walter, in exasperation.
"Of all the mean girls!" murmured Bess, with her arm about Grace, who was crying softly and begging her brother to desist.
"Oh! I can see what's caused all this," went on Linda, in her high-pitched voice. "Grace was mighty glad to have me and my friends even look at her before Nan Sherwood and Bess Harley came to the Hall. I wish her all the benefit she may derive from associating with _them_. I know one is a thief and the other is no better."
Bess turned upon the enraged girl with an angry retort. But Nan stopped her.
"Don't reply, Bess," said Nan, in a low voice. "Brawling never proves anything, or settles any argument. But if she keeps on saying in public that I am a thief I shall go to Dr. Prescott about it."
"You wouldn't be a tell-tale?" gasped Bess, horrified.
"In this case I will," Nan said firmly. "And she shall apologize in public."
Linda, by this time, had, in a measure, quieted down. She was sobbing angrily and did not hear what Nan said. The other young people left her strictly alone until the _Bargain Rush_ reached the dock.
Oddly enough not even the boatkeeper, Henry, had discovered the absence of the canoe in which Nan and Bess had sailed away from the landing two hours and more before. The other boats had come in, in a hurry, when the squall arose, and it was now so late that all the girls had gone up the bluff. The supper gong would sound soon.
Henry had gone to his supper, intending to return later to put all the boats under cover and lock up the house. The girls said Henry was afraid of the boathouse ghost himself, and would never go into the building after dusk without a lantern.