“Oh, not now, please,” said Marguerite, who sat in the end of the stage, and who was startled by the sudden apparition. “Come round to the house after we get settled.”
“All right, mum; thank ye, mum!” And the red-faced one disappeared as mysteriously as he had come.
“Wasn’t he awful?” said Marguerite. “He hopped up like a jack-in-the-box, and that off-with-his-head tone of voice scared me out of my wits.”
“Oh, that was old Farmer Hobbs,” said Marjorie, laughing; “he always brings us milk when we’re here in the summer.”
“Here’s the ocean, Nan; get out your best pensive expression and put it on,” cried Betty, as the stage bumped around a corner and the blue sea shone before them.
But Nan was already wearing what the girls called her rapt look, and she paid no attention to their banter.
“ ‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!’ ” began Millicent.
“Should you dry up, ’twould leave an awful hole,” continued Marjorie. “Oh, how good this salt air is! It makes me feel like a mermaid.”
“It has a worse effect on me than that,” exclaimed Betty. “It makes me just awfully hungry. Do we really have to get settled to housekeeping and all that before we can have anything to eat?”
“No, indeed,” said Marjorie; “we’ll have a picnic supper as soon as we can get enough things unpacked to have it with, and then we’ll begin our regular living to-morrow. There’s the house, girls; that shingled one next to the one with the yellow dog in front of it.”