“I can’t dance though, Polly,” she said now, as they approached the big white club house with its verandas all hung with Japanese lanterns and festoons of real flowers.
“Oh, yes, you can, too,” Polly assured her. “You can dance a reel. Even a telegraph pole could dance a reel, Nancy. And we girls will dance with you. That’s the way we used to do at Miss Calvert’s.”
Dorothy and Bess were on the lookout for them, and came down to meet them.
“We’re so glad you’ve come,” they cried, happily. “Because we’ve got a real guest of honor from Washington. He’s a friend of papa’s, and he’s the greatest naturalist in the country. Papa calls him the citizen of the world, for he loves all the world, and has been over it ever so many times. Papa says he holds it right in his hand, and pats it. Isn’t that funny?”
“The greatest naturalist in America,” Kate repeated. “From Washington?”
“Smith!” exclaimed Ruth, suddenly, “Smith!”
“Penryhn Smith,” added Polly, while the Vaughan girls looked at them with curiosity fairly bubbling out of their lips.
“Why? Do you all know him already?” asked Bess.
“Yes, we all know him well,” laughed Polly. “Come and see.”
They hurried up the broad flight of steps leading to the main floor of the club-house. Ruth reached over, and squeezed Polly’s hand. She was fairly treading on air. To think that their smuggler should have turned out to be Dr. Penryhn Smith of the Institute at Washington. Naturalist he was, yes, but more than that, they knew. Statesman, explorer, and most of all, perhaps, the Admiral had told them, he was a lover of all mankind, a lover of life in all its forms. He was the type of man who could hold a city audience entranced at a lecture, then turn and kneel beside a little child to show it the miracle of being in the wild flower it had just picked. Polly knew how dearly the Admiral valued his friendship, how Miss Calvert had taught them to revere his name, and she felt doubly happy over this disclosure of the Smuggler’s identity.
The club house seemed to be filled with guests that night. Juniors, and fathers and mothers of Juniors, and the people from the hotel and the summer cottages who had been invited. The girls were swept into the middle of it all before they could fairly catch their breath. And it seemed to them as if everywhere they caught the murmur, “Doctor Smith!”