“So do I,” agreed Mabel. “There never was anything so lovely as that harbor with the lighted bridge running across it.”
“And it just seemed too wonderful to be true for those northern lights to appear on top of everything else. I would have given anything if the rest of you had been up on deck to see them too. I didn’t know what had happened till Breck stuck his head up through the galley hatch and told me,” Jane said.
“Speaking of Breck,” Frances put in, “have you ever seen anything like the change in that gentleman? When we first came on board, he was silent as the grave and solemn as any owl, and now he works around on deck, whistling and he talks a lot more. And,” she added, “he knows how to talk remarkably well too.”
“But have you noticed to whom he talks?” inquired Mabel with a teasing glance at Jane.
“Why no, come to think of it, I hadn’t noticed particularly.”
“As if you would notice anything, Ellen, with Jack anywhere near you. If I ever get so wrapped up in my fat Charlie, will you all promise to drown me?” begged Mabel.
“You are both of you unbearable. But promise to drown you? No, it would hasten your death too much,” and Frances laughed at Mabel’s pleading face. “The disease is just as bad in you as in Ellen. The only difference is in the way it affects you. It makes Ellen a little quieter than usual and you a little noisier.”
The “Boojum” had gathered speed and was roaring along with the spray coming over the bow and drenching the girls to such an extent that they were forced to go and sit tamely in the cockpit, a thing that was distasteful to them all, but particularly to Frances and Jane.
“If our wind and luck hold, we can easily make Vinal Haven tonight,” said Charlie, looking up from the chart he and Jack had been reading.