style="font-size:15px;"> “If missy jes’ let me take her stateroom key, den all dem roses be ‘ranged in dar mos’ skillful – ya-as’m; mos’ skillful.”
“Why! did you ever!” gasped Helen, amazed.
“Those are never for us?” cried Ruth.
“You are Miss Cameron?” asked the smiling purser of Ruth’s chum. “These flowers came at the last moment by express for you and your friend. In getting under way they were overlooked; but the head stewardess opened the box and rearranged the roses, and I am sure they have not been hurt. Here is the card – Mr. Thomas Cameron’s compliments.”
“Oh, the dear!” cried Helen, clasping her hands.
“Those were the roses you thought he sent to Hazel Gray,” whispered Ruth sharply.
“So they are!” cried Helen. “What a dunce I was. Of course, old Tom would not forget us. He’s a good, good boy!”
She ran ahead to the stateroom. Ruth turned to see what had happened to the woman who thought they had taken her railroad ticket. The deck officer had turned her over to the purser and it was evident that the latter was in for an unpleasant quarter of an hour.
The roses seemed fairly to fill the stateroom, there were so many of them. The girls preferred to arrange them themselves; so the three porters left after having been tipped.
The chums opened the blind again so that they could look out across the water at the Jersey shore. Sandy Hook was now far behind them. Long Branch and the neighboring seaside resorts were likewise passed.
The girls watched the shore with its ever varying scenes until past six o’clock and many of the passengers had gone into the dining saloon. Ruth and Helen finally went, too. They saw nothing of the unpleasant woman whose ire had been so roused against them; but after they came up from dinner, and the orchestra was playing, and the Brigantine Buoy was just off the port bow, the girls saw somebody else who began to interest them deeply.
The moon was coming up, and its silvery rays whitened everything upon deck. The girls sat for a while in the open stern deck watching the water and the lights. It was very beautiful indeed.
It was Helen who first noticed the figure near, with his back to them and with his head upon the arm that rested on the steamer’s rail. She nudged Ruth.
“See him?” she whispered. “That’s the boy who you said looked like Henry Smith. See his curly hair?”
“Oh, Helen!” gasped Ruth, a thought stabbing her suddenly. “Suppose it is?”
“Suppose it is what?”
“Suppose it should be Curly whom the police were after? You know, that dressed-up boy – if it was he we saw on the dock – had curly hair.”
“So he had! I forgot that when we were trailing that queer old maid,” chuckled Helen.
“This is no laughing matter, dear,” whispered Ruth, watching the curly-haired boy closely. “Having gotten rid of his disguise, there was no reason why that boy should not stay aboard the steamboat.”
“No; I suppose not,” admitted Helen, rather puzzled.
“And if it is Curly – ”
“Oh, goodness me! we don’t even know that Henry Smith has run away!” exclaimed Helen.
Instantly the boy near them started. He rose and clung to the rail for a moment. But he did not look back at the two girls.
Ruth had clutched Helen’s arm and whispered: “Hush!” She was not sure whether the boy had heard or not. At any rate, he did not look at them, but walked slowly away. They did not see his face at all.
CHAPTER IV – THE CAPES OF VIRGINIA
Ruth and Helen did not think of going to bed until long after Absecon Light, off Atlantic City, was passed. They watched the long-spread lights of the great seaside resort until they disappeared in the distance and Ludlum Beach Light twinkled in the west.
The music of the orchestra came to their ears faintly; but above all was the murmur and jar of the powerful machinery that drove the ship. This had become a monotone that rather got on the girls’ nerves.
“Oh, dear! let’s go to bed,” said Helen plaintively. “I don’t see why those engines have to pound so. It sounds like the tramping of a herd of elephants.”
“Did you ever hear a herd of elephants tramping?” asked Ruth, laughing.
“No; but I can imagine how they would sound,” said Helen. “At any rate, let’s go to bed.”
They did not see the curly-haired boy; but as they went in to the ladies’ lavatory on their side of the deck, they came face to face with the queer woman with whom they had already had some trouble.
She glared at the two girls so viperishly that Helen would never have had the courage to accost her. Not so Ruth. She ignored the angry gaze of the lady and said:
“I hope you have found your ticket, ma’am?”
“No, I haven’t found it – and you know right well I haven’t,” declared the short-haired woman.
“Surely, you do not believe that my friend and I took it?” Ruth said, flushing a little, yet holding her ground. “We would have no reason for doing such a thing, I assure you.”
“Oh, I don’t know what you did it for!” exclaimed the woman harshly. “With all my experience with you and your kind I have never yet been able to foretell what a rattlepated schoolgirl will do, or her reason for doing it.”
“I am sorry if your experience has been so unfortunate with schoolgirls,” Ruth said. “But please do not class my friend and me with those you know – who you intimate would steal. We did not take your ticket, ma’am.”
“Oh, goody!” exclaimed Helen, under her breath.
The woman tossed her head and her pale, blue eyes seemed to emit sparks. “You can’t tell me! You can’t tell me!” she declared. “I know you girls. You’ve made me trouble enough, I should hope. I would believe anything of you —anything!”
“Do come away, Ruth,” whispered Helen; and Ruth seeing that there was no use talking with such a set and vindictive person, complied.
“But we don’t want her going about the boat and telling people that we stole her ticket,” Ruth said, with indignation. “How will that sound? Some persons may believe her.”
“How are you going to stop her?” Helen demanded. “Muzzle her?”
“That might not be a bad plan,” Ruth said, beginning to smile again. “Oh! but she did make me so angry!”
“I noticed that for once our mild Ruth quite lost her temper,” Helen said, delightedly giggling. “Did me good to hear you stand up to her.”
“I wonder who she is and what sort of girls she teaches – for of course she is a teacher,” said Ruth.
“In a reform school, I should think,” Helen said.
