“Girls, look!” cried Lucile, pointing dramatically to the shaft of sunlight filtering through the companionway. “The sun, the blessed old sun—it’s out!”
“Wonder of wonders!” cried Jessie, as they rushed up the steep steps. “Let’s go look.”
The sunshine fell on them in a warm, life-giving flood. It brought out the luster in their hair; it gleamed in their eyes; it sent the warm color tingling to their faces; it made them want to sing, to dance, to shout with gladness.
“Oh to think that we were growling! To think that we dared to be down-hearted when this was waiting for us!” cried Lucile, joyfully. “We don’t deserve our blessings.”
“Of course you don’t,” said a cheerful voice behind them. “How’s this for a day?”
“That’s just what we’ve been raving about,” said Jessie, as she hugged her cousin ecstatically. 188
“Hey, look out, young lady!” cautioned Jack, gaily. “Not everybody on board knows we’re related, remember.”
“Well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them,” she retorted. “Besides, I’d hug the ship’s cook to-day if he happened to be anywhere around.”
“I’m flattered!” laughed Jack, just as Phil greeted him with a bang on the shoulder that Lucile declared could be heard in the galley.
“Say, let’s play ‘ring around a rosy,’” he suggested. “We’ve got to do something to celebrate.”