“If so, what will poor Heavy do?” asked Ruth, smiling. “This must be about the time she wishes to exercise her own appetite at Lighthouse Point. Would you deprive her, my dear, of any gastronomic pleasure?”
“Woo-o-o!” blew Helen, making a noise like a whistle. “All ashore that’s going ashore! What big words you do use, Ruth. At any rate, let us partake of the eatables supplied by this hostlery. Come on!”
But they went up to their rooms first to “prink and putter” as Tom always called it.
“Dear old Tom!” sighed his twin. “How I miss him. And what fun we’d have if he were along. Sorry Nettie’s Aunt Rachel doesn’t like boys enough to have made up a mixed party.”
“You’re the only ‘mixed’ party I see around here,” laughed Ruth. “But I wish Tom _were_ here. He’d know just how to get at Curly Smith and do something for him.”
“That’s right! I wish he were here,” sighed Helen.
“Never mind,” laughed Ruth. “Don’t let it take away that famous appetite you just claimed to have. Come on.”
The girls went down and ventured into one of the dining rooms. A smiling colored waiter—“at so much per smile,” as Ruth whispered—welcomed them at the door and seated them at rather a large table. This had been selected for them because their party would soon be augmented.
And this, in fact, happened before night. The girls were lolling in content and happiness upon the veranda when the train came in bringing among other passengers Mrs. Parsons and Nettie.
Mrs. Parsons was a dark-haired and olive-skinned lady, who had been a famous beauty in her youth, and a belle in her part of South Carolina. Rachel Merredith had been quite famous, indeed, in several social centers, and she was well known in Washington and Richmond, as well as in the more Southern cities.
She greeted Helen kindly, but warmly kissed Ruth, having become an admirer of the girl of the Red Mill some time before.
“Here’s my clever little girl,” she said, in her soft, drawling way. “I declare! Ev’ry time I put on my necklace I think of you, Ruthie Fielding, and how greatly beholden to you I am. I tell Nettie, here, that when _she_ receives our heirloom at her coming-out party, she will thank you, too.”
“I don’t have to wait till then, Aunt Rachel!” cried Nettie, squeezing the plump shoulders of the girl of the Red Mill. “Isn’t it nice to see you both again? How jolly!”