“I believe if you would behave, Neale O’Neil, I’d get on better in the world,” she sighed. “I believe you were laughing when Miss Hastings went by. Well, now, listen! I am going to get acquainted with her. Maybe she will go to the St. Sergius Arms where Mr. Howbridge has got reservations for us. It is the most fashionable hotel on the island.”
“Do I have to put on full dress for dinner at night?” demanded Neale, not at all pleased.
“You do,” said Agnes wickedly. “And I shall insist upon your going to the manicure every other day.”
“Ow! Ow!” groaned Neale. “Lucky I don’t have to frequent the barber shop as Luke does. I suppose you would then insist upon facial massage, my lady?”
“Be still!” commanded the girl half in laughter and half serious. “I mean to become very snug with Nalbro Hastings, now you see.”
“I can see you’ve got a crush on her,” grumbled Neale, “just because you think she’s of the smart set. I wish you wouldn’t get these fits, Agnes. You are such a jolly good sport otherwise.”
At that Agnes Kenway took real offense and would not speak to him again for half an hour.
CHAPTER IX—THE GIRL FROM THE BACK BAY
Neale O’Neil tried to keep his eye on Tess and Dot, as he had promised Mr. Howbridge and Ruth, and he succeeded pretty well in doing so. But the children made their own friends very soon, and when Neale saw them conversing with some of the passengers, or making inquiries of the men working about the deck, he felt sure that they really could be in no mischief.
Just what they talked about, and all the wonderful things they learned of ships and shipgoing, they found little time to tell the other girls or Neale and Luke. But from a certain deeply tanned and quizzically smiling deckhand, whom they first met polishing brasses, Tess and Dot gained a deal of what Dot insisted upon calling “inflammation” about various things.