“Don’t call her mine!” Nancy hastened to disclaim, with a little shake to her cousin’s shoulders. “I didn’t want her to come. Nobody did. But as Mother said, what could you do, when Mr. Poole wrote so strangely, to say that he and Mrs. Poole were going suddenly away with the baby, and that there would be no other place for them to leave Anne? Just imagine! He said Anne had always spent her summers at Old Harbor; and now mightn’t she stay at Mother’s camp with us girls, to learn the simple life, which would be good for her!”
“My word!” commented Cicely. “How odd! Was that all her father said?”
“I think so. Anyway, you know Mother. After she had read that letter backward and forward—and upside down, for all I know—she sighed and said—‘Poor little Golden Girl! I don’t understand her father. But I guess we ought to have her here and be nice to her.’”
“Dear Tante!” exclaimed Cicely. “She couldn’t help but be nice to anyone. But why did she call this Anne a ‘poor’ little girl?”
“I don’t know,” said Nancy. “I wonder.”
Their wonderings were cut short by a cry from the other side of the pier. “Boat ahoy! Hi, Nancy!”
It was a tall young man in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers who called out to his sister over the heads of the crowd.
“Come on, girls!” summoned Nancy, who seemed to be their leader. And the little brown flock fluttered forward to the edge of the pier. “Now, when I say ‘One—two—three!’ be ready with the yell. We’ll start her right with a rousing welcome, anyway.”
The little steamer was just rounding the point of the nearest island. Evidently there were not many persons on board. It was still early in the season and many of the summer cottages were as yet unopened. On the upper deck was standing just one person. As the boat drew near one could see that this was a girl in a fur stole, who seemed to be looking earnestly at the group on the wharf.
“That must be Anne Poole,” said Nancy to her Club. And she whispered in Cicely’s ear—“I’m nervous! I don’t know why. She seems to me like a foreigner, though she’s not. But you didn’t, and you are!”