“Yes, she’s here just now, and wants to see you very much, and made me promise to send you to her the moment you came home. So, off you go! She lives with her mother in the old place, you know.”
“All right, I know. Farewell, mother.”
In a few minutes Billy was out of sight and hearing—which last implies a considerable distance, for Billy’s whistle was peculiarly loud and shrill. He fortunately had not to undergo the operation of being “cleaned” for this visit, having already subjected himself to that process just before getting into port. The only portions of costume which he might have changed with propriety on reaching shore were his long boots, but he was so fond of these that he meant to stick to them, he said, through thick and thin, and had cleaned them up for the occasion.
At the moment he turned into the street where his friends and admirers dwelt, Ruth chanced to be at the window, while the Miss Seawards, then on a visit to her mother, were seated in the room.
“Oh! the darling!” exclaimed Ruth, with something almost like a little shriek of delight.
“Which darling—you’ve got so many?” asked her mother.
“Oh! Billy Bright, the sweet innocent—look at him; quick!”
Thus adjured the sisters ran laughing to the window, but the stately mother sat still.
“D’you mean the boy with the boots on?” asked Jessie, who was short-sighted.
“Yes, yes, that’s him!”