"Did you ever, for one little fraction of a minute, doubt it, Mr. Richard Preble?"
"No; it is only fair to say that I have never doubted it. You and Billy are the real thing, whatever may be said for the remainder of us."
"Billy is a darling!" she declared enthusiastically. "Last night, when those pirates rushed us with their guns, you know, I wanted to cry; boo-hoo right out like a silly baby. It was just plain scare. A grown man would have tried to comfort me, I suppose, but Billy joshed me and made fun of me until I was too mad to be scared. Isn't it a thousand pities that he's so young, and so—so——"
"So poor?" I finished for her. "It is; a thousand pities. But there is hope on ahead, my dear child. Billy will outgrow his infancy some time; and you mustn't lose sight of the fact that, so far as poverty and riches are concerned, we all look very much alike, just now."
In such light-hearted banterings back and forth we put the quarter-mile of beach behind us and got busy with our smudge-fire building at the foot of the stripped palm-tree which carried one of Madeleine Barclay's knitted shoulder wraps for a distress signal. With a few palmetto leaves and bits of rotting wood to crisp and smoulder in the blaze we soon had our smoke column erected; and beyond this there was nothing much to do save to scan the horizon for the hoped-for sail.
"Do you really believe we shall be taken off before long, Dick Preble?" was Miss Edith's soberly put query, this after the fire was well established, and we were doing the horizon-sweeping stunt.
"Do you want the bald truth, or some nice little hopeful fiction?" I asked.
"You may save the fictions for Conetta and Madeleine and Annette, if you please. As you were kind enough to admit, a few minutes ago, I am a woman grown."
"Then I shall tell you plainly, Edie. I know this island. It is quite some distance from the nearest of the steamer lanes. It may be a long time before any one finds us."
She was silent for a little while, but the resolute, girlish eyes were quite unterrified. When she spoke again it was of a different matter.