“Why! did you ever!” gasped Helen, amazed.
“Those are never for us?” cried Ruth.
“You are Miss Cameron?” asked the smiling purser of Ruth’s chum. “These flowers came at the last moment by express for you and your friend. In getting under way they were overlooked; but the head stewardess opened the box and rearranged the roses, and I am sure they have not been hurt. Here is the card—Mr. Thomas Cameron’s compliments.”
“Oh, the dear!” cried Helen, clasping her hands.
“Those were the roses you thought he sent to Hazel Gray,” whispered Ruth sharply.
“So they are!” cried Helen. “What a dunce I was. Of course, old Tom would not forget us. He’s a good, good boy!”
She ran ahead to the stateroom. Ruth turned to see what had happened to the woman who thought they had taken her railroad ticket. The deck officer had turned her over to the purser and it was evident that the latter was in for an unpleasant quarter of an hour.
The roses seemed fairly to fill the stateroom, there were so many of them. The girls preferred to arrange them themselves; so the three porters left after having been tipped.
The chums opened the blind again so that they could look out across the water at the Jersey shore. Sandy Hook was now far behind them. Long Branch and the neighboring seaside resorts were likewise passed.
The girls watched the shore with its ever varying scenes until past six o’clock and many of the passengers had gone into the dining saloon. Ruth and Helen finally went, too. They saw nothing of the unpleasant woman whose ire had been so roused against them; but after they came up from dinner, and the orchestra was playing, and the Brigantine Buoy was just off the port bow, the girls saw somebody else who began to interest them deeply.