“Are you an apparition?” the boy smilingly inquired, when he was near enough to speak. “It is hard for me to believe my eyes.” Then, before the girls could reply, the lad was eagerly asking, “Have you come in a boat that is anchored nearby, and will you take little sister and me over to the mainland?”
Virginia, being the oldest, stepped forward and held out her hand, smiling in her frank, friendly way. “I wish that I might reply in the affirmative,” she said, “but that I cannot do, for we are shipwrecked, as I suppose you are also.” Then she told of their recent adventures, ending with, “But I am sure that we will soon be found by the Vine Haven authorities. This island cannot be far away, and so in time their search ought to lead them here.”
“I sincerely hope that they will for all our sakes,” the boy declared, “but before I tell you of the misadventures which led to Peggy and my being shipwrecked, I shall cook these fish for I am sure, if you have had nothing to eat since yesterday, that you must be nearly famished.” Then, he added, with a smile that assured the girls that he was just the kind of a lad Megs could depend on, he said: “Permit me to introduce my little sister, Mistress Peggy Wentworth. My own name is Winston.”
Virginia then told the first name of each of the six girls. “You never could remember so many last names, and so there is no need to tell them. Now, what can we do to help prepare the fish?” Then Virginia hesitated. “Although it doesn’t seem quite right for us to eat up your supplies.”
The boy laughed. “Luckily for us, this particular kind of a small fish seems eager to be caught. I can get as many as I want. I’ll rig up some more lines and we can all go fishing when our larder gets empty.”
“That boy has been well brought up, hasn’t he?” Eleanor said to Margaret, when they had left the group to search for sticks for the fire.
“Yes, indeed. And isn’t he good-looking?”
“Little Peggy would be a beauty if she were prettily dressed and had her hair cut.”
At another time Sally, the pampered darling of an idolizing mother would have scorned such coarse fare, but she ate her share at the strange banquet which soon followed as though it were the most delicious kind of food.
Luckily there was enough to satisfy even the ravenous appetites of the guests, then each was given a large shell and told to go to the spring for a drink. Laughingly they trooped along to the ferny dell, while their host remained behind to bury the bones.