“I do that myself sometimes,” answered Connie.
Several bungalows dotted the rather barren landscape, for Lighthouse Island was an ideal spot for a summer home—that is if one liked the seashore.
But the girls were not so much interested in what was on the island as they were in what was beyond it. The ocean—the great dark, mysterious ocean drew their eyes irresistibly and set their minds to wandering. And as the days passed they were to feel the spell of it more and more.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Danvers said cheerily, and with an effort the girls brought their thoughts back to the present.
Mrs. Danvers had turned from the main boardwalk down another that led to a bungalow whose every window was cheerfully and invitingly lighted.
“Be careful where you step,” Mrs. Danvers called back to them, and the girls saw that she was picking her steps very carefully. “There are two or three boards missing, and I can’t get Mr. Danvers to do the repairing. He spends whole days,” she added, turning plaintively to Connie, “up in that old lighthouse just talking to your Uncle Tom. I don’t know whether it’s your Uncle Tom’s conversation he finds so fascinating or his clam chowder.”
She opened the door as she spoke and the girls had a vision of a comfortable, gayly lighted room all wicker chairs and chintz cushions and chintz hangings, a room pretty and cozy, a room that seemed to be beckoning and inviting the girls to come in and make themselves at home.
Which they did—immediately. All except Billie, who stepped back a moment and gazed off through the dusk to the light in the lighthouse tower glowing its warning to the travelers over the dark highways of the sea.
“I love it,” she said, surprising herself by her fervor. “It looks so bright and brave and lonely.”
Then she stepped in after the others and almost ran into Connie, who was coming back to get her.