Bless your hearts, how glad I am to see you all!' exclaimed the sailor boy, beaming at them, as he stood with his legs apart as if he still felt the rocking deck under his feet.
'You ought to "shiver your timbers", not "bless our hearts", Emil; it's not nautical at all.

Oh, how nice and shippy and tarry you do smell!' said Josie, sniffing at him with great enjoyment of the fresh sea odours he brought with him.

This was her favourite cousin, and she was his pet; so she knew that the bulging pockets of the blue jacket contained treasures for her at least.
'Avast, my hearty, and let me take soundings before you dive,' laughed Emil, understanding her affectionate caresses, and holding her off with one hand while with the other he rummaged out sundry foreign little boxes and parcels marked with different names, and handed them round with appropriate remarks, which caused much laughter; for Emil was a wag.
'There's a hawser that will hold our little cock-boat still about five minutes,' he said, throwing a necklace of pretty pink coral over Josie's head; 'and here's something the mermaids sent to Undine,' he added, handing Bess a string of pearly shells on a silver chain.
I thought Daisy would like a fiddle, and Nat can find her a beau,' continued the sailor, with a laugh, as he undid a dainty filigree brooch in the shape of a violin.
'I know she will, and I'll take it to her,' answered Nat, as he vanished, glad of an errand, and sure that he could find Daisy though Emil had missed her.
Emil chuckled, and handed out a quaintly carved bear whose head opened, showing a capacious ink-stand.

This he presented, with a scrape, to Aunt Jo.
'Knowing your fondness for these fine animals, I brought this one to your pen.' 'Very good, Commodore! Try again,' said Mrs Jo, much pleased with her gift, which caused the Professor to prophesy 'works of Shakespeare' from its depths, so great would be the inspiration of the beloved bruin.
'As Aunt Meg will wear caps, in spite of her youth, I got Ludmilla to get me some bits of lace.

Hope you'll like 'em'; and out of a soft paper came some filmy things, one of which soon lay like a net of snowflakes on Mrs Meg's pretty hair.
'I couldn't find anything swell enough for Aunt Amy, because she has everything she wants, so I brought a little picture that always makes me think of her when Bess was a baby'; and he handed her an oval ivory locket, on which was painted a goldenhaired Madonna, with a rosy child folded in her blue mantle.
'How lovely!' cried everyone; and Aunt Amy at once hung it about her neck on the blue ribbon from Bess's hair, charmed with her gift; for it recalled the happiest year of her life.
'Now, I flatter myself I've got just the thing for Nan, neat but not gaudy, a sort of sign you see, and very appropriate for a doctor,' said Emil, proudly displaying a pair of lava earrings shaped like little skulls.
'Horrid!' And Bess, who hated ugly things, turned her eyes to her own pretty shells.
'She won't wear earrings,' said Josie.
'Well, she'll enjoy punching your ears then.