“Oh, you’re not all starched up the way the others are over at the hotel.” He squinted one eye at the sun. “It’s half-past twelve, and more too.”
Regretfully the girls took leave of their new kingdom, but as they walked back along the bay shore road to the hotel, they turned every now and then, and saw the little blue and gold pennant streaming valiantly in the breeze, and as Polly remarked, it certainly did look home-like.
They did not stop at the Carey cottage going back. It was a good mile around to the hotel, and the Admiral was waiting for them on the veranda.
“Polly, you go up and calm Welcome,” he said, the first thing. “She’s been down to me about sixty-nine times to ask me to send the life-savers after you. You run up before you have your lunch and show her there are no bones broken.”
Polly obeyed gladly enough. The old colored mammy was very dear to her, and her arms had been the only shelter she had known when the Admiral was away from Glenwood ever since her own mother died.
“Deed, chile, if I ain’t powerful glad to see you!” Welcome exclaimed, as soon as she set eyes on her. “Praise de Lord, oh, mah soul! Has you been way off in dat blazin’ sunlight and no parasol? If you ain’t de carelessest chile I ever did see. You’ll get so freckled dere won’t anybody know you under your bridal veil, you mind what I say, now.”
“No, I won’t, Aunty, truly. Listen. It’s just the happiest sort of a place, and I know you’ll love it. There are big fireplaces and a wide porch to sit out on, and you can see way out over the ocean and over the bay too. I don’t see why we can’t go over as soon as we have finished luncheon.”
“How do you intend totin’ me through all dat sand?” asked Aunty with dignity.
“We’re not going to tote you at all. We’re going to roll you,” laughed Polly, as she reached up, and took the wrinkled brown face between her fresh young palms. “Listen, you old dear. Just you go down and have your dinner, and then make out a list of what we need to cook with, and I’ll send Tom over to the village after it this afternoon.”
“Is dere anything to cook in?” asked Aunty, still unmollified.