“Smith!” exclaimed Ruth, suddenly, “Smith!”
“Penryhn Smith,” added Polly, while the Vaughan girls looked at them with curiosity fairly bubbling out of their lips.
“Why? Do you all know him already?” asked Bess.
“Yes, we all know him well,” laughed Polly. “Come and see.”
They hurried up the broad flight of steps leading to the main floor of the club-house. Ruth reached over, and squeezed Polly’s hand. She was fairly treading on air. To think that their smuggler should have turned out to be Dr. Penryhn Smith of the Institute at Washington. Naturalist he was, yes, but more than that, they knew. Statesman, explorer, and most of all, perhaps, the Admiral had told them, he was a lover of all mankind, a lover of life in all its forms. He was the type of man who could hold a city audience entranced at a lecture, then turn and kneel beside a little child to show it the miracle of being in the wild flower it had just picked. Polly knew how dearly the Admiral valued his friendship, how Miss Calvert had taught them to revere his name, and she felt doubly happy over this disclosure of the Smuggler’s identity.
The club house seemed to be filled with guests that night. Juniors, and fathers and mothers of Juniors, and the people from the hotel and the summer cottages who had been invited. The girls were swept into the middle of it all before they could fairly catch their breath. And it seemed to them as if everywhere they caught the murmur, “Doctor Smith!”
“We might have known there was more to it than Smith,” whispered Sue.
Polly said nothing, but she was doing a lot of thinking, and finally when she saw Mrs. Vaughan and the Commodore standing at the head of the long room, there was the smuggler himself beside them, clad in white flannels, and his eyes twinkling merrily, as he caught sight of the eight white-clad girls with Dorothy and Bess.
Mrs. Vaughan started to present them kindly, one by one, to the guest of honor, but Dr. Smith laughed and explained.
“I’m afraid, Mrs. Vaughan, that you are too late with your kind offices. These young ladies have been close neighbors of mine, and have been very good to me.”