“There is the breakfast-bell,” he added, in a light tone, as it rang out its keen notes. “Are you hungry?”
“Indeed I am, sir,” Star answered, eagerly, adding, with a clear, sweet laugh that fell like music on his ear: “Eating has been an impossibility during the last few days, and I have considerable lost time to make up. That bell has a welcome sound.”
“Then take my arm, little girl, and we will go down together; the boat is not quite steady even yet.”
“Little girl!”
She flushed again, and shrugged her graceful shoulders.
Then she glanced up at him with a serio-comic air, and said, with a pretty pout:
“I am sixteen years old, Mr.——”
She could not finish, because she did not know his name.
He laughed.
“And maidens of sixteen don’t like to be called little girls, eh?” he said. “Well,” he continued, “I feel as if I am privileged to call you that, since I am nearly sixty, and my name is Jacob Rosevelt.”