“You’d better change your mind, Mollie,” she cautioned merrily.  “You can’t give Gracie a ducking without ruining her dress and she might charge you damages.  Reconsider—­ I beg of you, reconsider!”

Mollie condescended to reconsider and plumped herself down cross-legged on the deck, disdaining a chair.

“Oh, very well,” she said, adding as she glared darkly at Grace:  “You will probably never know, woman, how near to death you were.”

To which Grace replied with unexpected ferocity.

“And you may never know, woman, just how near to death you are this minute.  Look at what you have done to my best sport skirt.  I don’t believe I will ever be able to get those wrinkles out.”

“If you two will stop quarreling just long enough to tell me where you want to go,” Betty requested, “I should be very much obliged.  Up or down the river?”

“Anywhere,” answered Grace, still regarding her crumpled sport skirt gloomily.  “We are just trying to kill time this afternoon anyway, so I don’t see that it makes much difference where we go.”

“Suppose we take her up to the Point,” suggested Mollie, getting up from the deck and going over to Betty who still had the wheel.  “Maybe we can get some ice-cream and a drink of ice water.  I am getting dreadfully thirsty already.”

Betty looked tempted but a little doubtful.

“You know it is pretty dangerous to run in there, Mollie,” she protested.  “There are so many other boats driven by Percy Falconer’s crazy lot who don’t care whether they capsize you or not—­”

“Goodness, Betty, it isn’t like you to be afraid,” Mollie started, but stopped at the look in the “Little Captain’s” eye.

“I’d rather you didn’t ever say that again, Mollie,” she said.  “I’ll take you in there since you want it, but if anything should happen remember that I warned you.”

“Goodness, Mollie, I don’t see why you ever wanted to go and suggest that for,” said Grace nervously.  “We all know there is danger of a collision over at the Point, and I’m sure I don’t want to spoil my clothes, even if you do.”

“Your father said that he would rather we kept to this side of the river, Betty,” urged Amy.  “Please don’t go over to the Point now.”

“There’s no use talking to her,” snapped Grace.  “You ought to know Betty well enough by this time to know that she would take us over to the Point now, after what Mollie said, if she knew we would all die of it.  Might as well save your breath.”

Mollie said nothing, but down in her heart she was more than a little bit anxious and was beginning to regret that she had deliberately egged Betty on.

Percy Falconer, of whom Betty had spoken, had once been a rather dudish, affected boy and had later developed into an exceedingly fast young man.  He had an immensely rich father and a mother who denied him nothing so that he had been able to gather together a few kindred spirits among whom he was the leader.  All the regular boys and girls in town thoroughly disliked “the set,” but there were a few girls who were willing to put up with Percy Falconer and his crowd for sake of the long motor rides, dances, dinners and motorboat picnics that the boys were able to give them.