“Oh, you’ll be sorry!” cried Peggy to Dalton, whom she liked very much, it seemed, “when we find out why is Pirates’ Cove or uncover a pirate hoard, or something!”
“If you find it on our side, Miss, it belongs to us!”
“Finders keepers, Dal,” laughed Peggy.
Of the girls Leslie was Peggy’s favorite, but Sarita had no reason to be jealous, since Peggy was too much younger to spoil the old close relation between the older girls. Yet Peggy was a bit of fire and energy and real lovableness to them both, and old enough in her ways to adapt herself to them if they forgot to adapt their plans to Peggy. Through Sarita, Peggy was introduced to the different gulls and other sea birds that flapped or sailed or flew over the bay and in the woods. Leslie knew them too and Peggy was envious, she said, until she found out that looking through Sarita’s good lenses, she, too, could distinguish the differences and learn to identify some of them. The little sandpipers that flew in wheeling flocks or skimmed with rapid feet over the sands were her particular delight.
Leslie and Sarita wondered what Peggy’s real name might be, if Mr. Ives were only her step-father, but Peggy did not seem inclined to talk about herself and they were too polite to ask. That she had been christened Marguerite, Margaret, or some other more dignified name than Peggy they naturally supposed, but they were puzzled a little, as doubtless mischievous Peggy intended, when she wrote large upon the sand one day at the beach the name Angelina.
“That, of course, is my real name, and Mother used to call me Angel sometimes till Dad said that it wasn’t very ‘characteristic.’” But Peggy’s pretty lips were parted in what might easily be called an impish grin.
“Don’t tell whoppers, little girl,” advised Sarita.
“Thanks. I’m glad you think that ‘Angel’ is appropriate.”
“Your lightning deductions are something wonderful,” lazily said Leslie, who was lying on the sand in the sun. It was really a hot morning “for once,” as Peggy said, and the girls could safely take their time to their dip. Peggy was telling them about bathing in Florida, and how she loved it. “But I’m glad to be here with you girls now and the peppy days that we usually have here just suit me. How about going around home after a while, letting me have a lunch fixed up and exploring that little cave we found. Perhaps there is a passage to that hole in Pirates’ Cove.”
“Whoever heard of a hole in a Cove?” Sarita queried.