The steamer scraped against the dock and the girls straightened their hats, picked up their suitcases, and started down the narrow winding stairs that led to the lower deck.
Connie led the way as she had done ever since they had left North Bend. She scrambled quickly out upon the pier and the chums, following more slowly, were in time to see Connie rapturously embrace first a lady and then a gentleman standing near by.
“Well, well!” a deep masculine voice was saying, “it seems mighty good to see our girl again. But where are the others?”
Connie turned eagerly to the girls.
“This is my mother and father, Billie and Laura and Vi,” she said, with a proud wave of her hand toward her smiling parents, who came forward and greeted the girls cordially.
“It’s too dark to see your faces,” Mrs. Danvers said. “But Connie has described you to us so many times that it isn’t at all necessary. I’m sure I know just exactly what you look like.”
“Oh, but they’re three times as nice as anything I’ve said about them,” Connie was protesting when her father, who had been conversing with the captain of the Mary Ann, stepped up to them.
“If you young ladies will give me your checks,” he said—and the girls knew they were going to love him because his voice sounded so kind—“I’ll attend to your trunks and you can go on up to the house.”
The girls produced their checks, Mr. Danvers went back to the captain, and Mrs. Danvers and the girls started off in high spirits toward the bungalow.
“Are you very tired?” Mrs. Danvers asked them, and the turn of her head as she looked at them made the girls think of some pert, plump, cheery little robin.