It was like living in a house, Ann thought, so convenient to everything. “I always did think that I would like to live in a house-boat,” she confided to Suzanne, to receive a well-bred stare. Suzanne had never thought house-boats had anything to do with her!
“You do say the funniest things sometimes, Ann,” she said.
As the boys had planned it, the young people went off to a moving picture after their rather early dinner, Ronald calling for a young friend on a neighboring yacht, which gave each lad a lass. This young lady was one they had met several seasons at Daytona, where the Bentleys often stayed. Quite accidentally the girls found that she knew Eleanor Frost and lived not far from her home on the Hudson. This was enough of a recommendation for Suzanne, who was friendly at once. Ann liked the appearance of Ronald’s friend, Louise Duncan by name, who had met Maurice before and remembered him. It was a “happy-go-lucky” affair, not planned except for the movie, which was rather disappointing. They left before it was over and drifted into an ice-cream parlor, where they sat to visit as much as to eat the cool refreshments. Ann could not get over its being winter. “Someway, I keep thinking that I have the dates all wrong,” she said to Maurice, who remained her special cavalier. “I started to put June on a letter I began to Marta this morning.”
“You are not the only one who gets mixed in Florida. ‘It is always June in Miami’ is a favorite saying down here, you know.”
“We’ll all go up on our deck,” announced Ronald, “and we’ll get out our little banjos for some music.”
There was no dissenting voice. In a short time Ann was sitting with a light wrap around her shoulders, as in summer time at home, listening to the music of guitar, mandolin and banjo, the instruments that the boys happened to play. Theirs was not the only yacht that boasted music. Voices and instruments mingled their sounds over the river’s reflections. Stars and moon were bright. An occasional boat passed. Strains from a band concert in the park reached them occasionally, till the boys said that there was too much competition and stopped. “Wait till we get out upon the bounding billow, girls,” said Ronald.
“Then we shall show what we can do!” added Jack. “Tomorrow we are going to take you up New River, though, and perhaps around ‘Alligator Circle’.”
“What is ‘Alligator Circle’?” asked Ann. “Do you mean that we may really see some alligators?”
“If it is a sunny day, I think that you may see quite a number on the banks. We are going in Dick Bell’s launch, provided that you young ladies will accept our plan.”
“We are in for any fun that you suggest,” declared Suzanne.