"Rank disobedience!" he said sternly. "I said serge."
"Don't they look nice, Uncle?" said Tommy mischievously, "and we made them ourselves. You can't object to that, my dear man, and we shall wash them ourselves, so there's no laundry bill for you to pay. In fact, you haven't a leg to stand on, so you had better say at once they look sweet and save time. Don't you think so, Mr. Purvis?"
"Weel," said the Scotsman cautiously, "I wouldna say but what they are suitable to the climate, but they're terrible gay like."
"Oh, you should see Bess's evening frock. It's perfectly lovely—chiffon, with pink insertion; it suits her dark hair splendidly."
"There, Tommy, that'll do," said the Captain; "such talk isn't suitable aboard this vessel. You're unruly minxes, and what I'll do with you in London I don't know."
"You'll soon get used to it, Uncle dear, and I really wouldn't worry if I were you. We'll keep you straight."
"A happy girl, Purvis," said the Captain, when they were alone.
"Ou, ay, she is that."
They spent a couple of days in Buenos Ayres while Captain Barton was unloading part of his cargo and settling his affairs. When they left, a certain young electrical engineer asked to be allowed to call on them when he returned to England, and looked very crestfallen when Elizabeth told him that they had no address. They were almost disappointed when they rounded the terrible Cape Horn without encountering a storm. After a short stay at Valparaiso, the Captain set his course direct for the Pacific Islands. Interested as the girls had been hitherto, they became intensely excited now. Mary knew a great deal about Captain Cook and other early navigators, and all the girls had read a volume of Stevenson's on the South Seas, which their uncle had brought home once in a colonial edition. The romance of this quarter of the globe had captured their imagination, and they looked eagerly forward to seeing the strange men and women, the gorgeous scenery, the many novel things which their reading and their uncle's stories had led them to expect.