"Well, captain?" mildly said the grandfather.
"Well, commodore?" said the captain, declining his son's chair.
"Oh, good!" cried Ramsey, and rose with her nurse. "I didn't know anybody but my father was called commodore!"
"Yes," replied the captain, "my father too."
"Where've you been?" asked the fearless girl.
His answer was mainly to her mother: "I've been making myself acquainted in the ladies' cabin. This is no Hudson River boat, you know—whole trip in a day's jaunt."
"Ah, 'tis a voyage!" said madame.
"So it's well to know one's people," added he. He looked up into the night. "What a sky! Miss Ramsey, did you ever see, through a glass, the Golden Locks of Berenice?"
"The gold—" she began eagerly—"no-o! What are the golden—?" But there she checked, fell upon old Joy, and laughed whimperingly, "That's a dig at my red hair!"
One of the twins gravely accosted his mother, but she and the captain were laughing at Ramsey while the grandfather said: "My dear child, your hair is beautiful."