Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island Part 16

The steamer sc.r.a.ped against the dock and the girls straightened their hats, picked up their suitcases, and started down the narrow winding stairs that led to the lower deck.

Connie led the way as she had done ever since they had left North Bend.

She scrambled quickly out upon the pier and the chums, following more slowly, were in time to see Connie rapturously embrace first a lady and then a gentleman standing near by.

"Well, well!" a deep masculine voice was saying, "it seems mighty good to see our girl again. But where are the others?"

Connie turned eagerly to the girls.

"This is my mother and father, Billie and Laura and Vi," she said, with a proud wave of her hand toward her smiling parents, who came forward and greeted the girls cordially.

"It's too dark to see your faces," Mrs. Danvers said. "But Connie has described you to us so many times that it isn't at all necessary. I'm sure I know just exactly what you look like."

"Oh, but they're three times as nice as anything I've said about them,"

Connie was protesting when her father, who had been conversing with the captain of the _Mary Ann_, stepped up to them.

"If you young ladies will give me your checks," he said--and the girls knew they were going to love him because his voice sounded so kind--"I'll attend to your trunks and you can go on up to the house."

The girls produced their checks, Mr. Danvers went back to the captain, and Mrs. Danvers and the girls started off in high spirits toward the bungalow.

"Are you very tired?" Mrs. Danvers asked them, and the turn of her head as she looked at them made the girls think of some pert, plump, cheery little robin.

It was really getting very dark, and the girls could not make out what she looked like, but they could see that she was small and graceful and her voice--well, her voice had a gay lilt that made one want to laugh even though all she said was "what a pleasant day it is." No wonder, with that father and mother, Connie was such a darling.

"Why, no, we're not very tired," Billie said in answer to Mrs. Danvers'

question. "We were on the train, but the minute we got on board the boat we seemed to forget all about it. It's this beautiful salt air, I suppose," and she sniffed happily at the soft, salt-laden breeze that came wandering up from the sea.

"Of course it's the air," agreed Mrs. Danvers gayly. "The air does all sorts of wonderful things to us. You just wait a few days and see."

They were walking along a rough boardwalk set quite a way back from the water's edge so that there was a white stretch of beach between it and the first thin line of lapping waves.

"Why, look at the boardwalk!" cried Laura, in wonder.

"You didn't say anything about a boardwalk down here, Connie," added Vi.

"You're really right up to date, aren't you?"

"What did you suppose?" put in Billie. "That Lighthouse Island was in the backwoods and had no improvements?" And she laughed gayly.

"Well, I know that very few of the islands on this coast have boardwalks," defended Laura. "Most of them have the roughest kind of stony paths."

"You are right, there," said Connie. "I remember only too well when I was on Chatter Island we had to climb over the rocks all the way, and one day I twisted my ankle most dreadfully--so badly, in fact, that I was laid up for three days while all the other girls were having the best time ever."

"I know what I'd do on a real dark night," remarked Billie dryly. "If I couldn't see where I was stepping, I'd take my chances and walk in the sand."

"I do that myself sometimes," answered Connie.

Several bungalows dotted the rather barren landscape, for Lighthouse Island was an ideal spot for a summer home--that is if one liked the seash.o.r.e.

But the girls were not so much interested in what was on the island as they were in what was beyond it. The ocean--the great dark, mysterious ocean drew their eyes irresistibly and set their minds to wandering. And as the days pa.s.sed they were to feel the spell of it more and more.

"Here we are," Mrs. Danvers said cheerily, and with an effort the girls brought their thoughts back to the present.

Mrs. Danvers had turned from the main boardwalk down another that led to a bungalow whose every window was cheerfully and invitingly lighted.

"Be careful where you step," Mrs. Danvers called back to them, and the girls saw that she was picking her steps very carefully. "There are two or three boards missing, and I can't get Mr. Danvers to do the repairing.

He spends whole days," she added, turning plaintively to Connie, "up in that old lighthouse just talking to your Uncle Tom. I don't know whether it's your Uncle Tom's conversation he finds so fascinating or his clam chowder."

She opened the door as she spoke and the girls had a vision of a comfortable, gayly lighted room all wicker chairs and chintz cushions and chintz hangings, a room pretty and cozy, a room that seemed to be beckoning and inviting the girls to come in and make themselves at home.

Which they did--immediately. All except Billie, who stepped back a moment and gazed off through the dusk to the light in the lighthouse tower glowing its warning to the travelers over the dark highways of the sea.

"I love it," she said, surprising herself by her fervor. "It looks so bright and brave and lonely."

Then she stepped in after the others and almost ran into Connie, who was coming back to get her.

"What were you doing all by yourself out there in the dark?" she asked accusingly. "We thought you had run away or something."

"Goodness, where would I run to?" asked Billie, as they went upstairs together arm in arm. "There's no place to run except into the ocean, and I'd rather wait for that till I have my bathing suit on."

They found Mrs. Danvers and Laura and Vi in a large room as pretty and comfortable as the room downstairs, though not quite so elaborate. Laura and Vi were busily engaged in making themselves entirely at home.

Laura had her hat off and was fixing her hair in front of a mirror and Vi was hanging up her coat in the closet.

"You see there's a connecting door between these two rooms," Mrs. Danvers said in her pleasant voice; "so that you girls can feel almost as if you were in one room."

Then as she caught sight of Billie and Connie in the doorway she beckoned to them and disappeared into the next room, and with a laughing word to Laura and Vi they followed her.

This was the room that she and Connie were to occupy, Billie found, and she looked about her at the handsome mahogany furniture and dainty dressing table fixings with interest.

But she was even more interested in seeing what Connie's mother looked like in the light. She was not a bit disappointed, for Mrs. Danvers'

looks entirely matched her voice.

Her eyes were a wide laughing hazel, set far apart and fringed with dark lashes. Her hair, for she had not worn a hat, was a soft brown, and the night wind had whipped a pretty color into her face.

"She is awfully pretty. Not as pretty as my mother," Billie thought loyally, "but awfully pretty just the same."

Billie must have been staring more than she knew, for suddenly Mrs.

Danvers--it seemed absurd to call her "Mrs." she looked so like a girl--turned upon her and took her laughingly by the shoulders.

"So you're Billie Bradley," she said, her hazel eyes searching Billie's brown ones. "Connie said you were the most popular girl at Three Towers and that all the girls loved you. I can't say that I blame them, my dear," giving Billie's flushed cheek a gay little pat. "I'm not very sure but what I may do it myself. Now here----" And she went on to give directions while Billie followed her with wondering eyes. How could a woman who was old enough to be Connie's mother look so absolutely and entirely like a girl of twenty? She was not even dignified like most of the mothers Billie knew--she did not even try to be. Connie treated her as she would an older and much loved sister. One only needed to be with them three minutes to see that mother and daughter adored each other and were the very best chums in the world. And right then and there Billie began adoring too.

"Now I'll run downstairs and get something on the table for you girls to eat, for I know you must be starving," said Mrs. Danvers, or rather "Connie's mother," as Billie called her from that day on. "Don't stop to fix up, girls, for there won't be a soul here to-night but Daddy and me--and we don't care. Hurry now. If you are not downstairs by the time I have dinner on the table I'll eat it all myself, every bit." With that she was gone into the next room, leaving a trail of laughter behind her that made Billie's heart laugh in sympathy.

"Connie," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and regarding her chum soberly as she opened her bag and drew out a brush and comb, "I'm simply crazy about your mother. She's so young and pretty and--and--happy.

Does she ever do anything but laugh?"

"Not often," said Connie, adding with a little chuckle: "But when she does stop laughing you'd better look out for 'breakers ahead,' as Uncle Tom says. Mother's French you know, and she has a temper--about once a year. But for goodness sake, stop talking, Billie, and get ready. You've got a patch of dirt under one eye. What's that I smell? It's clam chowder!"

"Clam chowder," repeated Billie weakly. "Are you sure it's clam chowder, Connie?"