"I may just as well lie down too while I'm waiting. I'll put Periwinkle on this flat stone: he'll make a very good pillow. Ah! How nice it is here under the trees. I wish the branches would keep still, though, so that the sunlight wouldn't keep flicking into my eyes. I'll put my hat over my face, and then—Yes, that's better. Now, I'll just shut my eyes and wait till Frances—"
"Ting-a-ling-a-ling!"
Margaret had not had her eyes shut one minute—no, not half a minute, she was sure—when she heard the sound of a little bell somewhere close by. She sat bolt upright and listened, while Periwinkle, who had been uncomplainingly serving her as a pillow, the valiant Periwinkle sprang up on his sausage legs and began to growl fiercely—as fiercely, that is to say, as was to be expected of a yellow plush puppy with a fixed red worsted smile.
"Ting-a-ling-a-ling!" went the bell again. The sound seemed to come up from the edge of the water at the foot of the cliff. Margaret jumped up, and followed by Periwinkle she stepped softly to the edge of the rocks and peeped over.
CHAPTER II
ADMIRAL BOXWOOD
Standing on a flat shelf of rock which rose about six inches above the level of the water was a little man, who, from the cut of his clothes, was evidently a naval man. He looked so smart that Margaret made sure he must be an admiral at least, though instead of the blue cloth suit of an ordinary, every day admiral, this little man wore a bright green cocked hat with a long red tassel on the top of it; a gold-laced swallow-tailed coat of cherry-colored silk; green-and-white striped knee breeches; white silk stockings; and white shoes with cherry-colored rosettes. Altogether he was very bright and pretty to look at.
But the most remarkable thing about him was his size.
"He's just about as tall as Mother's new, long-handled parasol," thought Margaret. "And yet he isn't a boy, for he has gray hair and gray whiskers. What red cheeks he has, too: they're just as red as Edward's new doll's were before he washed them in the bath-tub with the nail brush. I wonder why he keeps on ringing that bell. He must be waiting for somebody."
If he was waiting for somebody, he was not worrying himself much about it, for he was standing in a careless attitude with his feet crossed, and instead of looking out for the people to come, his eyes were fixed on a little silver bell which, holding it out at arm's length between his finger and thumb, he kept tinkling and tinkling as though he had nothing else in the world to do; all the time smiling away to himself in the most cheerful and contented manner.