CHAPTER V


The shipboard day passed, uneventful and pleasant. Anne had made for
herself an explanation of her uncle's absence, which no one had heart to
correct.

"He's nawful busy, Uncle Carey is," she explained. "I reckon he stayed
there talking to Roger--he always has so many things to tell Roger to
do!--and the boat was gone before he knew it. So he just had to wait. I
'spect he'll come on one of those other boats. Wouldn't it be funny if
one of them would come splashing along right now and Uncle Carey would
wave his hand at me and say 'Hello, Nancy pet! Here I am.'"

Mrs. Patterson put a caressing hand on the child's head but did not
speak. Lying back in her steamer chair, she looked across the
gray-green water and thought and wondered. Presently Anne crumpled her
steamer rug on the deck and nestled down in it. She chirped to
Honey-Sweet and wiggled her finger at the smiling red mouth, playing she
was a mother-bird bringing a fat worm to her nestling. Hour after hour,
while Miss Drayton and Mrs. Patterson read or talked together, Anne
would sit beside them, sometimes chattering and 'making believe' with
Honey-Sweet, sometimes prattling to her grown-up friends about her old
home in Virginia or her life in New York.

Mrs. Patterson petted her and made dainty frocks for Honey-Sweet. Brisk,
practical Miss Drayton gave Anne spelling lessons and set her problems
in number work, protesting that she was too large a girl to spend all
her time playing and looking at fairy-tale books, blue, red, and green.