“The Junior race won’t come off till the third day Tom tells me,” the Captain answered. “And that makes me think.” He dipped into his jacket pocket, and pulled forth neat rolls of twine and lines, a pouch of tobacco, and some keys. “They just gave me a telegram for you over at the hotel. Here ’tis. No, ’tain’t. Avast there, maybe it’s down below. Nancy and mother told me not to give it to you sudden, for fear it might be bad news.”
“Oh, I don’t think it is,” Polly said, hopefully. She never went out and opened the gate for trouble, not Polly.
The Captain drew forth the yellow envelope gingerly.
“I wouldn’t open it in too big a hurry, anyway,” he warned. “Better take such matters pretty easy. I’m suspicious of the pesky things every time I see one. I never got one yet that told me any good news. It always plumps you full of bad surprises, all to once.”
“Well, this is good news,” Polly cried, as she glanced over the sheet of paper. “It’s from grandfather, and he’ll be here to-morrow, and stay for regatta week, then take us home with him! Let’s see, from the fifteenth to the twenty-second is the regatta, then allowing four days down the coast we’ll get to Queen’s Ferry just in time to rest up before school opens.”
The Captain’s eyes twinkled under their bushy brows.
“I shall have to hand in a true and faithful report if the Admiral asks me for one,” he said.
“Oh, but we’ve been good, haven’t we, Captain Carey?”
“Fair to middlin’, fair to middlin’,” laughed the old sailor, as he started down the beach, and Polly ran up to the house to break the news to the other girls.