She started forward, wishing to beg
leave to set the fallen doll to rights, and then stopped short, too shy
to speak to the strange girl.
A lean, sour-faced man in black bumped against her. "What an awkward
child!" he said crossly.
Anne reddened and retreated to the railing. Feeling all at once very
small and lonely, she searched the dock for her uncle but he was nowhere
to be seen.
Then a bell rang. People hurried up the gang-plank. Last of all was a
workman in blue overalls, with a soft hat jammed over his eyes. Orders
were shouted. The gang-plank was drawn in. Then the _Caronia_ wakened
up, churned the brown water into foam, crept from the dock, picked her
way among the river vessels, and sped on her ocean voyage.
CHAPTER II
It was eight o'clock and a crisp, clear morning. A stewardess was
offering tea and toast to Mrs. Patterson, the frail little lady whom
Anne had observed in a wheel-chair the afternoon before. Seen closely,
her face had a pathetic prettiness. With the delicate color in her soft
cheeks, she looked like a fading tea rose. Yet one knew at a glance that
she and bird-like Miss Sarah Drayton were sisters. There was the same
oval face--this hollowed and that plump; the same soft brown hair--this
wavy and that sleek; the same wide-open hazel eyes--these soft and
sombre, those bright as beads.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25