"If another silly man kisses me, I'll--I'll--slap him!"
Of course everyone laughed uproariously at this, but the guard suddenly shouted, "All aboard." And the sailing party rushed up the gang-plank.
Once on deck, however, Polly remembered something she had meant to ask Tom Latimer. She leaned over the rail and called back:
"Oh, Tom! you never told me who sent the roses!"
"You'll find out about it when you reach your stateroom," shouted Tom, making a megaphone of his hands. "I met him there, talking to the steward, and you will know as soon as you go down."
Eleanor giggled. "That's where Tom was when Mr. Dalken dared anyone to take one of his girls away from him."
"But who could Tom have met in our stateroom, Nolla? I thought everyone was on the pier with us?"
The steamer had already swung down-stream, and the friends on the pier were mere dots, so the curious girls hurried down to see who had sent Polly the Valentine roses. Ruth accompanied them, as she felt she should have been the third in this girl relationship--like triplets, she said, one day, to her father.
Then the door was opened, and sweet fragrance greeted the girls. There in a corner of the stateroom stood a dozen American Beauty roses, each with a stem almost four feet long. And about the stems a golden cord was tied, and upon this cord hung a card.
The three girls stood admiring the great crimson beauties and then Ruth said: "See who they are from--and who for?"
"Why, they're Polly's, of course. The same 'old valentine' sent them!" laughed Eleanor.
Polly's fingers trembled as she bent forward and read what was written on the card: "Your Valentine that was, and is, and always will be, in this world, and in the next, and forever, Tom."
"Oh, no! No! No! No! I won't have you so, Tom!" cried Polly, throwing herself in the chair and covering her face with her hands. Eleanor and Ruth stood perfectly still, not knowing what to do or say.
Then Polly lifted her face. She was trying to smile. "Dear old Tom only did that to tease me. Isn't he an old plague?"
"I should say he was!" exclaimed Ruth, innocently.
Eleanor with the worldly wisdom learned from her mother, added guilefully: "He sure is. But you tricked him, Polly."
"He was the only one in the party who didn't get a kiss from you!" laughed Eleanor.