“Is it true that they lose their luster, and people put them back into the sea to regain it?” Kate inquired.
“Well, people do it, but I don’t know whether it helps them any. A pearl merchant will tell you it is better to peel a pearl, but that is not so romantic, is it? There was one Empress, you know, who sent her casket of pearls every year to be immersed in the sea. Now, don’t ask any more questions until this afternoon, then we’ll hold a talk fest.”
“No, a pearl fest,” Polly suggested. “And we’ll have a driftwood fire on the beach after dark, and toast marshmallows, and eat hermits.”
“Will you tell me what hermits are?”
“I had rather leave that to Aunty Welcome, for she makes them, you know,” laughed Polly.
They caught up with the carry-all on their way back, and walked beside it on the path next the road. The Captain looked different without his uniform, all dressed in a suit of sober black, but he was as rosy and as twinkly-eyed as ever, and he looked over the girls with a feeling of pride.
“You’re getting to be a credit to the sou’west shore,” he told them. “Trig and taut as a fleet of clipper-built coasters, be’ant they, mother? But you keep away from the Point, now mind. There’s a reef out there that at low tide would rip up a keel like a submarine mine hitting a Russian man-o’-war. And any sort of a west gale would blow you straight out on it.”
“But there aren’t any gales,” said Sue.
“Not yet, but wait a bit. We’ll be into August shortly, and then, I tell you, look out. There’s some quick fellows come a’racing out of the sou’west that would take your heads off.”
“I wish we could get out into the open sea, though, before we go home, Captain Carey,” said Polly, wistfully. “We’re only shore sailors. Couldn’t we go out around the Point some fair day, and reach the open?”