“I know who it is, girls,” she cried. “That’s our smuggler!”
CHAPTER XIV
“MR. SMITH OF SMUGGLERS’ COVE”
“Ship, ahoy!” called out the lone occupant of the boat, as he waved his hand to them, and came alongside the landing. The girls saw at once that he was an elderly man, with a square-cut, iron-gray beard that curled upward at its edges, and a moustache. He wore a white sweater and linen trousers, and that was as far as their observation went at first sight.
“Won’t you come ashore?” called Polly, with cheery hospitality, as she waved back to him.
“Now, Polly, be careful,” warned Kate. “You don’t know whether he’s Captain Kidd, or Neptune in disguise, or Andrew Carnegie. He really looks like all three.” But Polly disregarded the warning. She ran down the steps, and met the stranger half-way up the little boardwalk from the landing, after he had moored his boat.
“He has something under his arm, girls,” Sue whispered. “Looks like a bottle—no, it’s our marmalade jar, all washed up nice and clean. Isn’t he the tidy old smuggler, though?”
“Good afternoon, young ladies.” As the stranger greeted them, he raised his cap with a gesture that even the Admiral would have approved of. “I have come to return the marmalade jar, and to thank you for the treat. It was the finest I ever ate.”
“You may have more of it if you like,” offered Polly, instantly, with all her Virginia grace and hospitality to the fore. “We have plenty of it on hand. And you need not have brought back the jar.”
“But I wanted to, I wanted to.” He smiled around at them through his rimless eyeglasses, with the friendliest interest. “It gave me a good excuse for calling. I’ve been wanting to come ever since I saw the first smoke rise from your chimney.”