By this time Jennie and Dorothy had come up and were given hearty greetings. Professor Horner in the character of a yachtman was rather a different person from the grave and severe schoolmaster whose school they attended. As for Edna, she was so divided between her desire to be with her favorite cousin Ben and with Uncle Justus, of whom she was very fond, that she swung between her two desires like a pendulum till Ben caught her and pretended he was going to throw her overboard because she would not walk with him up to the house. By the time this pretended squabble was over Uncle Justus was well ahead with Mr. Ramsey, so the three little girls attended Ben like satellites.
[108] "You're going to stay to dinner, Mr. Horner said so," Jennie told Ben in a satisfied voice.
"And do you know what we are going to do to-morrow?"
"No. What are you going to do?"
"We are going to have our breakfast on the yacht." Ben gave this information as if it were a great piece of news.
"But I thought you always did that."
"So we do."
Jennie looked puzzled, but Edna laughed. It was so like cousin Ben to do that way. "It is so nice to have you here," said Edna, fondling the hand that held hers. She and the others had settled it that as Ben was her own cousin she had prior claim to his right hand and the other two hung on his left arm, getting in one another's way a great deal in an effort to establish an equal right.
Ben's presence at the lunch table kept the little girls in a state of giggles, which was aggravated by the inquiring look Uncle Justus would give them over his spectacles once in a while, as if he would say, Why all this merriment when there is no apparent cause?
It was at the lunch table that Mr. Ramsey proposed a sailing party for the next afternoon. "I have been promising these young people for some time that I would take them out," he said. "Old Cap'n Si has a good boat, and Mrs. Ramsey has promised [109]we shall have a supper to take with us. Gosling Island is a pretty place, and I think you will all enjoy the sail. What do you say, Mr. Horner? Will you and Ben go with us?"