“Please, Commodore,” echoed Kate and Ruth, laughingly, and the Commodore finally agreed.
“I think we’d better start by half-past eight, girls,” she said, as she sat in the hammock and deliberately brushed out her brown curls.
“Say, Polly, suppose somebody over on the yachts had field glasses, and could see you?” questioned Isabel.
“See me? Look at Kate clad in a bath robe of bright blue Turkish toweling. Look at Crullers with a red shawl draped artistically over her nightgown. I move we all adjourn out of sight.”
Aunty Welcome’s turbaned head appeared at the kitchen door, as they all trooped back into the living-room.
“Has you all been out on dat porch in your nightgowns?” she asked, ominously. “Well, I did think I might make a Spanish omelet for breakfast, but now you don’t get it.”
“Oh, please, darling, precious Aunty—” began Polly, who loved Spanish omelet, but Welcome held firmly to her point.
“No, ma’am. It’s de only power I got over you all, and if you don’t behave, I won’t cook nice things for you. Oatmeal and boiled eggs is what you’ll get.”
“Let’s hurry and dress, girls, and maybe she will.” Polly curled her hair over her finger quickly, and tied the cluster with a soft satin ribbon. “Grandfather arrives at Eastport on the nine forty-five train from Portland, and I want to be there to meet him. So I think you girls can all go up on the Orienta veranda and watch the start, and we can join you there.”
“There won’t be any start before noon,” Kate answered. “Why can’t we all meet the Admiral at Eastport and let everybody else know we are meeting him. It’s an event for a little place like Eastport to catch a real Rear-Admiral even if he is on the retired list, and we must let the town know its honor. Let’s all carry blue and gold flags, and dress up in our best, and salute him in state when the train pulls in.”