As they appeared above,
they received a merry greeting from their father, who sat chatting with
Mr. Lawrence to leeward of a smokestack, which gave a grateful warmth,
as the day was a typical November one, gray and chill.
Both gentlemen sprang up to offer chairs, and congratulate them upon
their courage in venturing out, and they were barely seated, when up
came Dwight, trying to keep under a most amazing grin that persisted in
stretching his mouth from ear to ear.
"Well, this is good!" he cried, shaking hands with a nourish. "I knew,
if you'd just make a try at it, you'd be all right. If everybody would
stick it out and stay on deck, as I do, there'd be no such thing as
seasickness."
"Oh, the conceit of him!" laughed his uncle. "Stick it out, indeed!
Why, you don't know what it means, you healthy young rascal. You have
the stomach of a goat!"
To divert attention, possibly, Dwight suddenly turned to the girls, and
inspected them with apparent curiosity.
"You seem to be decorated, this afternoon," he remarked in a
non-committal tone, "and got on your pink and blue ribbons, I declare!"
His gaze rested on the sea-biscuit, and he lowered his eyelids to hide
the laugh behind them.
"You didn't know we had decorations on this ship?" asked Hope
teasingly. "Only a few get them. They are for good conduct under
trying conditions. We have been ill, but not disagreeably ill.
There's a difference."
The gentlemen were looking at the painted squares, now, and her father
said, "What's that nonsense, my dear? What are they, anyhow?"
"Just something the stormy petrels dropped through our porthole," said
Faith, gravely taking up the tale.
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