“I only wanted to say,” she began, as the other girls walked on with the Admiral, “that we are from Virginia, from Queen’s Ferry, and we belong to a—a—our yacht club. You can see the flag flying over yonder where the shore curves before you get to the Point. We’re going to live there all summer, and we’d be ever so glad if you would come down and see us.”
“We’d love to,” Dorothy spoke up, warmly. “This is my sister Bess. We’ll try to come over some day next week.”
“If you do, we’ll show you how to sail a yacht,” Polly said encouragingly, but the girls laughed.
“Oh, we go out every day on the bay in our yacht. You can see her from here. We belong to the Junior Sailing Club at the Orienta.” Bess pointed eagerly down to the hotel landing. “She is named the _Nixie_.”
Polly followed the direction in which she pointed, and saw a slender, close-reefed yacht lying just below the boat landing. It was clean and looked well-dressed, the same as its owners did. From where she stood Polly caught a sparkle of polished brass work around the cockpit.
“We have plenty of boats, but we haven’t learned how to sail them yet,” she said. “As soon as we do, we’ll race you.”
“That’s a challenge, remember, and we take it up,” returned Dorothy, laughing, and Polly hurried ahead to join the others, feeling that she had won two friends who seemed very much worth while keeping.
They reached the island about four-thirty, and the remainder of the day was crowded with things waiting to be done.
“Right now, in the beginning, let’s start with some system,” said Kate. “If we don’t we’ll all be getting in each other’s way. Polly, come in here and stop gazing at the water. Help me plan the house. There are three rooms upstairs, just plain boarded chambers, but they’ll do to sleep in if the nights are not too hot. I ordered a bolt of mosquito netting, and we must start in to-morrow to tack it up. There are five cots upstairs, but only one bed downstairs, in the bedroom off the kitchen. Can you figure out where we are all to rest our weary heads? I give it up.”
“Let’s give Aunty the full grown bed, because she’s old and will have all the cooking and washing and ironing to do. I guess we’ll have to get two more cots. When grandfather goes back to the hotel, we can ask him to send them up to us.”