"'M not," retorted Cornelius James. "I'm a boy: girls can't steer boats. 'Sides, Georgie'll be sick."
"Oh, I hope there'll be a band and dancing," said Georgina rapturously.
"That's all you girls think about," snorted a young gentleman of about her own age, with deep scorn. "_I_ hope there'll be a shooting gallery, an' those ras'berry puffs with cream on top. . . ." His eye followed the pitching steamboats, fast drawing near. "Anyhow, I hope there'll be a shooting gallery. . . . I say, it's rather rough, isn't it?"
The children, cloaked and muffled in their wraps, watched the boats buffet their way shoreward in clouds of spray. The parting injunctions of nurses and governesses fell on deaf ears. How could anyone be expected to listen to prompted rigmaroles about "bread and butter before cake" and "don't forget to say thank you for asking me" with the prospect of this brave adventure drawing so near?
Georgina, standing on tip-toe with excitement, suddenly emitted a shrill squeal of emotion. "Oh! there's Mr. Mainwaring in the first boat!"
"Who's Mr. Mainwaring?" inquired a small girl with a white bow over one ear, secretly impressed by Georgina's obvious familiarity with the inspiring figure in the stern sheets of the picket-boat.
"_Dear_ Mr. Mainwaring!" repeated Georgina under her breath, gazing rapturously at her idol.
"He's--he's Mr. Mainwaring," replied Georgina. "My Mr. Mainwaring." Which is about as much information as any young woman may reasonably be expected to give another who betrays too lively an interest in her beloved.
The Torpedo Lieutenant waved his arm in a gesture of indiscriminate greeting, and the children responded with a fluttering of hands and dancing eyes. The steam pinnace was following hard in the wake of the picket-boat.
Jane, with the far-seeing eye of love, recognised the occupant instantly. "There's Mr. Standish," she said. "_My_ Mr. Standish!"
The nurse of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James turned to the Providence that brooded over a small boy with a freckled face. "Did you ever hear such children?" she asked in an aside. "_Her_ Mr. Standish! That's the way they goes on all day!"
The other nodded. "Mine's like that, too; only it's our ship's Sergeant of Marines with him." Master Freckles's choice in the matter of an idol had evidently not lacked the wise guidance of his nurse.