"Who are they?" everybody wanted to know. But no one could guess.
"Oh, look at this!" called the people, as an old boat with two little girls drifted along.
The Fisherman's Daughters!
Perhaps it was because there was so much gayety around that these little girls looked so real. From the side of their weather-beaten boat dragged an old fishnet. Each girl had on her head a queer half-hood, black, and from under this Nellie's brown hair fell in tangles on her bare shoulders, and Dorothy's beautiful yellow ringlets framed in her own pretty face. The children wore queer bodices, like those seen in pictures of Dutch girls, and full skirts of dark stuff finished out their costumes.
As they sat in the boat and looked out to sea, "watching for the fisherman's return," their attitude and pose were perfect.
The people did not even cheer. They seemed spellbound.
"That child is an actress," they said, noting the "real" look on Nellie's face. But Nellie was not acting. She was waiting for the lost father at sea.
When would he come back to her?