THERE seemed to be a great mystery about that picnic. Mrs. Merrill and Mrs. Berry wouldn’t let the girls help with the baskets and even kind Mrs. Trudy, the hostess at the hotel, merely smiled and put her finger to her lips when the girls asked her what was going on.

“I think we ought to see what they’re taking to eat,” said Ellen as she hung on to the porch railing out in front; “maybe we won’t like it.”

“No danger,” said Alice positively; “mother’s there and she always makes nice lunches.”

“But we ought to see it,” insisted Ellen. “I tell you what let’s do. There’s a window in Aunt Sue’s room” (Aunt Sue was Mrs. Berry’s friend) “that opens onto a roof, a low roof just by the kitchen. I know ’cause we had that room ourselves last year. Let’s climb out the window and peep down into the kitchen.”

“I don’t know if mother’d like us to peek,” replied Mary Jane doubtfully, “but we might climb out on the roof and see if we could peek. And then when we saw if we could we could decide about doing it.”

“Anyway let’s go,” said Ellen, who had no particular scruples about peeking. So they ran up stairs and climbed out of Aunt Sue’s window and sure enough, they could look right down into the kitchen without half trying. They saw Mrs. Merrill standing by a table and Mrs. Berry bending over a basket on a chair, but before they really had time to see what each was doing, Tom came out the kitchen door.

“Say, girls,” he called, “want a ride? I have to go up to the store for paper napkins and your mothers say you may go along.” “Oh, dear,” said Alice who, being the oldest felt responsible for letting the girls come out on the roof, “but we’re not down ready to go.”

“You will be in a minute,” said Tom laughingly; “watch me.” He went over to the orange tree near by, picked up the ladder that leaned against it and set the ladder up to the side of the house. “There you are, young ladies,” he said proudly; “walk right down!”

“Ugh!” cried Ellen, “I’m scared to.”

“No you’re not,” answered Alice; “it’s fun to climb ladders. Here, let me go first and then I turn around and hold your hand and you won’t be scared a bit.”

Nor was she, for Alice showed her how to go down backwards so she could look up all the time and Ellen thought it so much fun that she wanted to climb up again just for the fun of coming down. “Not to-day,” said Tom, “for we have to be off. You help Mary Jane, Alice, while I get out the bus. They wanted us to hurry back with the napkins, you know, because they’re almost through packing the picnic basket.”

By the time they came back with the napkins the luncheon was all packed and the three ladies, hatted and ready to go, were sitting on the front porch waiting, so there was no more temptation to peek into the kitchen. In about five minutes the big seven-passenger car that was to take them on the trip, drove up and they all piled in.

“Should we take wraps?” asked Mrs. Merrill at the last minute.

“Wraps!” laughed Mrs. Berry; “look at the sun! We’ll have sunshine all day if I’m any weather guesser.”

Alice, being the oldest girl, sat on the front seat with the driver; Mary Jane and Ellen had the two folding seats in the back and the three ladies had the long back seat to themselves.

“And don’t put your feet into the lunch,” warned Alice, as she leaned back and saw that the precious basket was right between the two little girls.

“Hump!” grunted Mary Jane, “think we want stepped-on lunch? We’re just as particular about the basket as any older body, we are!”

First they drove across the bridge toward the ocean; then they turned and started down the long wide beach.

“We’ll go along here this way for miles and miles,” said the driver to Alice, “and if you watch you’ll see queer things on the beach.”

“Queer things?” questioned Alice; “what kind of things?”

Before the driver had a chance to answer he spied something he wanted the girls to see and with a skid and a whirl he brought the car to a sudden stop right down by the edge of the waves.

“There,” he said, pointing to a lump of something that lay on the sand, “that’s what I mean. I’ll get it for you.” He jumped out of the car, picked up the messy looking thing and handed it to Alice. “It’s a jelly fish,” he explained; “there are lots of them washed up on the beach here. See, this is the way it sails on the water.”

The girls looked at the thing in open eyed amazement. They couldn’t realize that that queer looking mess that looked all the world like spoiled gelatine, could have been a creature sailing on the water.

“You just wait,” laughed the driver; “I’ll show you some out in the water before we turn off this beach.” He kept his word, too. About a half mile farther down the beach he spied a live jelly fish riding the waves. When the girls saw that they thought first he must be joking them for it looked quite a bit like a sail boat some child had made and which had tipped over and blown out to sea. But when he stopped the car they could see plainly that it was just such a creature as he had shown them before.

“They certainly do have queer folks down at this place,” said Mary Jane, “queerer folks than live up at my home, I’m sure of that!”

Soon they turned off of the beach and went back across a bridge to a great orange orchard Aunt Sue wanted Ellen to see. The owner of the orchard was expecting them and he himself took them out to where oranges were being picked and then to the packing room where the golden fruit was scrubbed and sorted and packed. Mary Jane like the sorting the best of all.

“It’s just like a marble game,” she exclaimed excitedly as she watched the fruit come rolling down the trough. “See! That little one goes in there and the middle sized one goes in there and the great big orange goes way down to the end. Let’s stay and watch some more.”

“Not this time,” replied Mrs. Merrill regretfully; “if we are to have a picnic we must be on our way because it’s nearly noon now.”

The orchard man loaded the girls with oranges and tangerines for their lunch and urged them to come again some time. They sped along the hard shell road, passed inlet after inlet where the water from the ocean, rising now with the turn of the tide, came close up to the road; and finally they turned in at a clean, pretty woods and the car came to a standstill.

“This is a nice place,” said Mrs. Merrill to Mrs. Berry, “and we’re certainly glad you brought us along to your party. Girls, I’ll race you to that oak tree!”

The girls, each one, had intended to suggest eating lunch the very first minute they got out of the car; but they couldn’t let a challenge like that go by. Off they raced, Alice leading easily as they neared the great tree which was the goal.

“Let’s give her a handicap,” Mrs. Merrill said, as they measured up how very much Alice had beaten; “she’s so old she needs one.” So they made Alice stand five feet behind as they raced back and then the race came out exactly a tie.

“I say the winners get a luncheon for a prize,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, laughingly; “I think that’s safe when we all won, don’t you?”

While they had been racing, Mrs. Berry and her friend had spread the white table cloth and had unpacked most of the tempting food, so each girl dropped down by the nearest napkin and prepared to be served. No wonder the ladies had wanted to keep that lunch basket for a surprise—it was a meal fit for a king and each hungry eater was loud in the praises of kind Mrs. Trudy who had given them such a feast. There was fried chicken, each piece frilled with white paper and rolled up by itself; and sandwiches and rolls and jelly and olives and pickles and salad and cake and, oh, just everything good a person could think of. And last of all the real surprise—a can of fine ice cream which not one had guessed was tucked in under the back seat; no one, that is, but the driver, whom Mrs. Trudy had let into the secret.

After lunch was over the girls gathered moss and shells and acorns; they played games and had such a good time that no one even thought of home or the sky or weather or anything like that till suddenly Mrs. Merrill noticed that the sun wasn’t shining.

“We should have brought wraps after all!” exclaimed Mrs. Berry in dismay, “but who’d have guessed that this fine day would end in a rain. Come quick, girlies, we’ll have to bustle our things into the car in a jiffy and make for home. I know these southern storms and this starts out like a bad one.”

Even as she spoke the sky grew suddenly blacker and a great flash of lightning lit up the woods with a weird light.

“I never saw anything so sudden!” cried Mrs. Merrill; “look! There’s a drop of rain now! Hadn’t we better put up the curtains on the car before we start? It would be a bad thing for us to get wet so far from home.”

The three ladies helped and the girls held curtains from the inside so the job didn’t take very long. But even that little time made a great difference. The great drops of water came faster and faster and the driver got soaked when he jumped out to lock the gate that led from woods to road.

“There’s no one on the road, driver,” said Aunt Sue, as they started north, “so let her out. The roads are good and we can get home through the woods if you drive fast so as to make it before the roads get too soaked.”

On they dashed; past bridges, woods, gullies and inlets. They were taking the inside road as that would get them home quicker than the beach road they had used coming down. The girls thought it was a lark to sit cuddled up safe and dry in the car while the lightning flashed and the rain beat upon the leather roof over their heads.

On they went, past more woods and orchards and creeks, all the time having near them on one side or the other the wide stretches of water that now, at high tide, came up so close to the road. The shell road made fine driving but no one, not even the driver who was used to that country, realized how very slick the road might be in such a storm. On, and on, through the lightning that lit up the dark shadows of the groves they raced past. And then a sudden whirl—a slip—a splash! The car had skidded from the road into the bay and stood hub deep in a vast inlet of water.