For want of other occupation she took off her hat and swung it till the
daisy-wreath was in peril. Trudy and Collin walked in silence.

But the active brain of Miss Rosalie Scott was by no means idle. She
hummed, but she smiled, too; she swung her hat, but she had a thoughtful
frown--not only that, a determined one.

Trudy was destined to see yet another remarkable instance of the
impulsiveness without which Rosalie Scott would not have been Rosalie
Scott, and which worked for good or ill as the case happened.

When they had covered the pier and had passed up the street as far as
the Bellevue Hotel, had reached its broad entrance, she suddenly turned.

"Come in for a minute," she said--"both of you. Oh, don't look so
scared--just for a minute! Trudy Carr has promised me a visit for a long
time, anyhow, and--well, you'll have to come. _Come!_"

Rosalie was in earnest. She took them each by the hand and pulled them
up the wide piazza steps, reiterating her commands. And Collin Spencer,
who had had no notion of complying, found himself, before he could get
his breath back, standing in one of the fine great parlors of the
Bellevue Hotel, gaping in confusion at a long mirror and blue plush
chairs.

"There, now, sit down," said Rosalie. She ran to a small knob in the
wall and pressed it, and to the brass-buttoned boy who appeared said,
"Please ask Mrs. Scott to come here."