Far, far in the distance they saw the staff of the Cape Henry Light. The steamer soon turned her prow to pass between these two points of land, known to seamen as the Capes of Virginia, which mark the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.
Their fair trip down the coast from New York was almost ended and the chums began to pick up their things in the stateroom and repack their bags.
“Do you suppose Nettie and her aunt have arrived, Ruth?”
“I really don’t,” Ruth Fielding said, as she and her chum stood on the upper deck again and watched the shore which they were approaching so rapidly.
“Goodness! won’t you feel funny going up to that big, sprawling hotel alone?”
“No, dear. I sha’n’t be alone,” laughed Ruth. “You will be with me, won’t you?”
“The rooms are engaged for us, you know,” Ruth assured her chum. “Mrs. Parsons knew she might be delayed by business in Washington and that we would possibly reach the hotel first. They have our names and all we have to do is to present her card.”
“Fine! I leave it all to you,” agreed Helen.
“Of course you will. You always do,” said Ruth drily. “You certainly are one of the fortunate ones in this world, Helen, dear.”
“Because,” Ruth said, laughing, “all you ever will do in any emergency will be to roll those pretty eyes of yours and look helpless, and _somebody_ will come to your rescue.”
“Lucky me, then!” sighed her friend. “How green the grass is on the shore, Ruth—and how blue the water. Isn’t this one lovely morning?”
“And a beautiful place we are going to. That’s the fort yonder—the largest in the United States, I shouldn’t wonder.”
As the steamer drew in closer to the dock those passengers who were not going on to Norfolk got their hand baggage together and pressed toward the forward lower deck, from which they would land at the Point. The girls followed suit; but as they came out of their stateroom there was the omnipresent colored man, in his porter’s uniform now, ready to take the bags.
Ruth and Helen let him take the bags, though they were very well able to carry them, for he was insistent. The stewardess—a comfortable looking old “aunty” in starched cap and apron—was likewise bobbing courtesies to them as they went through the saloon. Helen’s ready purse drew the colored population of that boat as a honey-pot does bees.