“Any time you like,” answered Mrs. Danvers, her heart warming to their girlish enthusiasm. She was falling in love with Connie’s friends more and more every minute. “Uncle Tom receives visitors at all hours of the day.”
“And he has lots of ’em,” added Connie, nodding over her coffee cup. “All the children and the men love him. He can tell so many stories, you know——”
“And fish stories too, I reckon,” put in Connie’s mother laughingly. “You know you can never really depend upon a sailor’s telling the truth.”
Good as the breakfast was, the girls found themselves hurrying through it, so eager were they to see the lighthouse and Uncle Tom. They took Bruce with them at Mrs. Danvers’ request, for she was going to be very busy and the big dog did have a habit of getting in the way.
As the girls swung along the boardwalk they had a wild desire to shout with the sheer joy of living. Everything looked so different by daylight. It was not half so thrilling and mysterious, but it was much more beautiful.
The ocean was calm, for there was almost no wind. The water gleamed and sparkled in the brilliant sunshine, and the beach was almost too dazzlingly white to look upon.
In the distance rose the irregular outline of the mainland, but on all other sides there was nothing but an illimitable stretch of long, graceful, rolling combers.
As the girls came out upon the Point, there, before them, rose the lighthouse tower, robbed of the mystery it had worn the night before, yet wearing a quaint, romantic dignity all its own.
“Connie,” said Billie happily, “I’m sure this is the most wonderful place in the world.”