nearly noon
`` Please do n't joke me about her before the rest of the crowd , '' said Albert ; `` remember your promise ! '' `` Well , you told the truth when you said you had fallen in love with her , I guess , '' observed Frank ; `` a fellow that feels that way about a girl must be in love . '' `` My dear boy , '' replied Albert , `` what you say may be true , but I 've not yet insisted upon her singing ` Ben Bolt ' three times in one evening . '' It was nearly noon when Albert left the yacht . He had exchanged his bedraggled yachting-suit for a neat gray one , and with a small satchel , his sketch-book , and a box of choice Havanas for Uncle Terry , he rowed ashore . For three hours the `` Gypsy '' had been the cynosure of all the Cape eyes , old or young , for a handsome two-hundred-ton yacht was a novelty in their little harbor . When she steamed slowly out , with Frank and his companions , in natty white duck suits , grouped on her stern , she was a pretty sight , and as she cleared the narrow entrance , the crew fired three guns and dipped her flag in honor of Albert , and then he picked his way over the rocks to the lighthouse .