On the deck aft, where the young people had gathered, there was much laughter.
Gladys was really pleased to see Ruth. As for her cousins, they were a bore, but she had no idea of being openly rude to them. She simply meant to ignore them.
It was not easy to disregard two such popular girls. Barbara and Mollie seemed to be well able to get on without her patronage. Barbara was already smiling and chattering with Governor Post, while the boys described her mad ride of two days before.
“Father,” said Hugh, “I forgot to introduce you to Miss Thurston by her proper title, ‘Miss Paul Revere.’”
“Harry,” asked Gladys, as they stood on the outside of the circle, “don’t you think it is disgusting the way that forward cousin of mine always manages to put herself before the public?”
“Well,” said Mr. Townsend—was there a little admiration in his tone?—“she seems to have plenty of grit.”
It was really Mollie, not Barbara, who saw through Gladys’s treatment of them. Barbara was too open-hearted and boyish to notice a slight, unless it was very marked.
Gladys had asked Ruth and Grace to her stateroom, and Mrs. Post had put the other two girls into her unoccupied guest chamber. It was a little gem of a stateroom, upholstered in pale green to relieve the glare from the water.
“Bab,” Mollie chuckled, rubbing her cheeks until they were pink, “do you remember the story of ‘The Water Baby’?”
“Yes,” Bab answered absently; “I do, after a fashion. But why do you ask? You haven’t turned into a water baby, have you, just because you are on board a yacht for the first time in your life?”