“Yes,” replied Dorothy, with serene confidence, “I should be very much obliged if Captain Kempt would obtain for me a card of invitation to the ball on the ‘Consternation.’”

“Really!” gasped Sabina, “and may not my mother supplement my father’s efforts by providing you with a ball dress for the occasion?”

“I could not think of troubling her, Miss Kempt.  Some of my customers have flattered me by saying that my taste in dress is artistic, and that my designs, if better known, might almost set a fashion in a small way, so I shall look after my costume myself; but if Mrs. Captain Kempt were kind enough to allow me to attend the ball under her care, I should be very grateful for it.”

“How admirable!  And is there nothing that I can do to forward your ambitions, Miss Amhurst?”

“I am going to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might smile at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that people would say I was an acquaintance of yours.”

After this there was silence in the sewing room until Katherine, followed by a maid, entered with tea and cakes.  Some dress materials that rested on a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive Katherine, and the table, with the tray upon it, was placed at the right hand of Dorothy Amhurst.  When the servant left the room, Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang up lightly upon it, and sat there swinging a dainty little foot.  Sabina had seated herself in the third chair of the room, the frown still adding severity to an otherwise beautiful countenance.  It was the younger daughter who spoke.

“Now, Dorothy, tell us all about the elopement.”

“What elopement?”

“I soothed my mother’s fears by telling her that you had eloped with the captain of the ‘Consternation.’  I must have been wrong in that guess, because if the secret marriage I hoped had taken place, you would have said to Sabina that the shackles were on your wrists instead of off.  But something important has happened, and I want to know all about it.”

Dorothy made no response to this appeal, and after a minute’s silence Sabina said practically: 

“All that has happened is that Miss Amhurst wishes father to present her with a ticket to the ball on the ‘Consternation,’ and taking that for granted, she requests mother to chaperon her, and further expresses a desire that I shall be exceedingly polite to her while we are on board the cruiser.”

“Oh,” cried Katherine jauntily, “the last proviso is past praying for, but the other two are quite feasible.  I’d be delighted to chaperon Dorothy myself, and as for politeness, good gracious, I’ll be polite enough to make up for all the courteous deficiency of the rest of the family.

  ’For I hold that on the seas,
   The expression if you please
   A particularly gentlemanly tone implants,
   And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.’