A Manitee,
A Hippocampus said to me.
Be sure and treat,
Her awful sweet,
Or she’ll gobble you up, from head to feet.”
Polly repeated the lines sedately, but her eyes were brimful of fun, as she stepped from the launch, and followed Ruth up the brass railed gangway. The latter had rubber-padded steps to prevent feet slipping.
It took the united efforts of the Admiral and two sailors to get Aunty Welcome up that narrow flight, but they succeeded. Mrs. Yates was awaiting their coming, forward beneath the awning.
“I am so very, very glad to have you with us,” she said cordially, as she clasped each girl’s hand in hers, and smiled at their happy faces. “Both the Senator and myself feel indebted to you all for consenting to be our guests as far as Maine. This is Aunty Welcome, isn’t it?” She turned to a broad-shouldered lad beside her. “Marbury, won’t you take Aunty into the cabin and introduce her to Dido, so that she will feel at home?”
Marbury obeyed, willingly, for under the united fire of seven pairs of eyes, he began to feel somewhat uneasy. In the door of the forward cabin stood the stewardess, Dido, bowing and smiling broadly, in her snowy dress of white linen, with a white cap on her head, and Aunty Welcome was glad enough to find a kindred spirit.
A cabin boy carried the suitcases and various wraps away and the girls seated themselves in the cosy wicker-chairs under the wide awning, and tried to think it was not all a dream.