Connie, nodding over her coffee cup. "All
the children and the men love him. He can tell so many stories, you
know----"

"And fish stories too, I reckon," put in Connie's mother laughingly. "You
know you can never really depend upon a sailor's telling the truth."

Good as the breakfast was, the girls found themselves hurrying through
it, so eager were they to see the lighthouse and Uncle Tom. They took
Bruce with them at Mrs. Danvers' request, for she was going to be very
busy and the big dog did have a habit of getting in the way.

As the girls swung along the boardwalk they had a wild desire to shout
with the sheer joy of living. Everything looked so different by daylight.
It was not half so thrilling and mysterious, but it was much more
beautiful.

The ocean was calm, for there was almost no wind. The water gleamed and
sparkled in the brilliant sunshine, and the beach was almost too
dazzlingly white to look upon.

In the distance rose the irregular outline of the mainland, but on all
other sides there was nothing but an illimitable stretch of long,
graceful, rolling combers.

As the girls came out upon the Point, there, before them, rose the
lighthouse tower, robbed of the mystery it had worn the night before, yet
wearing a quaint, romantic dignity all its own.

"Connie," said Billie happily, "I'm sure this is the most wonderful place
in the world."

CHAPTER XVIII

UNCLE TOM

Uncle Tom was undeniably glad to see them. He was sitting in the little
room at the base of the tower which was his living room, smoking a great
corn-cob pipe and idly turning over the pages of a book.

But as Connie entered and ran to him with a joyful cry, he put the pipe
down carefully, flung the book on the floor and caught the girl in a
bear's hug.

"Well, well!" he cried, his great voice filling the room like thunder,
"here's my little girl come back to me again. I was beginning to think
you'd deserted your uncle in his old age, Connie, lass. When did you get
back? And who are these other very pretty young ladies you have with
you?"

"They are my chums and the nicest girls in all the world," said Connie,
turning to them gayly. "You must have known they were coming, Uncle Tom.
Mother said she told you."

"Yes, yes, so she did," said Uncle Tom in the same hearty tones that
seemed to fill the little room and--the girls could almost have sworn to
it--make