Dugald Allan explained that this was a trick of the sun and water. “Sometimes they are green and sometimes they are gray and deep purple. The fishing boats are starting out for the grounds. They’ve been waiting for the tide. That large schooner’s headed for the banks—I think it’s the Puritan, Jed Starrow’s new boat. She won’t be back for a week or so. Most of the others will pull in by dark.”
“Can I go out on one of them? Oh, you don’t know how much I want to, I’ve never been in anything but a rowboat. And I can swim! Has Lavender a boat?”
“One can always find a dory one can use—whenever he wants one. And Lavender has the Arabella.”
It was on the tip of Sidney’s tongue to ask “What is the Arabella?” and something more of this Jed Starrow whom she remembered Captain Phin Davies had mentioned, but another thought seized her, crowding out all others. From this boarder who seemed to want to be very nice to her, she might learn the answer to the riddle that was perplexing her.
“Mr.— Mr.—”
“Dugald, please. Won’t you treat me like one of the family?”
“Mr.—Dugald, I—I want to ask you something. Prob’ly you’ll think it’s dreadfully rude but—you see, none of us, my sisters and me, really knew anything about Cousin Achsa and the Greens except what we found in a book in our attic—a sort of family tree book. But I wanted to go somewhere, so I wrote to her. I didn’t tell my sisters until I got an answer back. Mr.—Dugald, can letters be awfully different—from people?”
A guilty shiver raced the length of Mr. Dugald’s spine.
“What do you mean?” he parried.
“Why, I mean the letter I got back looked so nice. It looked as though the person who wrote it was—well, sort of rich and lived in a big house and—”