“But they’re certain to stop and see us on their way back the end of August,” Polly said cheerily. “We’ve had a fine trip, and I think it was mighty lucky we had it at all. So now it’s over, let’s not sit down and weep. Isabel’s wiping her eyes now. Face about the other way and be happy. Where’s grandfather?”
Down at the far end of the veranda he sat in a comfortable armchair, chatting with another elderly gentleman.
“He has joined the rocking-chair fleet so soon,” Kate exclaimed. “And Aunty Welcome’s upstairs telling the chambermaids all about Virginia. Let’s go and find the captain who knows all about the island and the yachts.”
“But we don’t even know his name,” said Isabel.
“We shall, though, soon,” Polly replied. Her eyes were bright with excitement. “I am going to ask everyone I meet, very nicely, if they can direct me to the captain, and you see if we don’t find him.”
Up the boardwalk they started, going towards the village. The hotel was a low, two-storied frame building, with broad verandas around it, and tall, rocky bluffs on either side. Behind it, through a break in the bluffs, could be caught a glimpse of hills, blending one into the other, and rising higher and higher against the skyline, until they seemed to become a part of the clouds themselves.
The crescent-shaped shore was rocky also. Before the hotel was a long stretch of smooth beach, and the island shores looked sandy from a distance, but for the rest, rocks seemed to predominate. Not the smooth, shelving sandstone the girls were used to seeing, but great, rough masses of brownish green, that appeared to have the hardness and weight of iron slag.
“Just look at that group way out yonder in the bay,” Ruth exclaimed. “Aren’t they like a herd of hippopotami under water? I expect to see them rise up, and start away any minute. And, see, girls, every single one of those islands has trees on it. I wonder which is Lost Island?”
“Seems to me,” said Isabel, critically, “that a sandy beach would be much better for our sailing, than those rocks. Suppose we bump into them.”
“Don’t worry, Dame Isabel,” Polly slipped her arm around her, happily. “If we bump into them, we’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing they didn’t bump into us, won’t we? Here cometh a native of this wild and rocky shore, mates. I think he’s Boy Friday.”