Throughout the long summer day a gentle excitement had fluttered the hearts of those ladies, young, or not so young, who had received invitations to the ball on board the “Consternation” that night.  The last touches were given to creations on which had been spent skill, taste, and money.  Our three young women, being most tastefully and fashionably attired, were in high spirits, which state of feeling was exhibited according to the nature of each; Sabina rather stately in her exaltation; Dorothy quiet and demure; while Katherine, despite her mother’s supplications, would not be kept quiet, but swung her graceful gown this way and that, practising the slide of a waltz, and quoting W. R. Gilbert, as was her custom.  She glided over the floor in rhythm with her chant.

  “When I first put this uniform on
   I said, as I looked in the glass,
   ’It’s one to a million
    That any civilian
    My figure and form will surpass.’”

Meanwhile, in a room downstairs that good-natured veteran Captain Kempt was telling the latest stories to his future son-in-law, a young officer of the American Navy, who awaited, with dutiful impatience, the advent of the serene Sabina.  When at last the ladies came down the party set out through the gathering darkness of this heavenly summer night for the private pier from which they were privileged, because of Captain Kempt’s official standing, to voyage to the cruiser on the little revenue cutter “Whip-poor-will,” which was later on to convey the Secretary of the Navy and his entourage across the same intervening waters.  Just before they reached the pier their steps were arrested by the boom of a cannon, followed instantly by the sudden apparition of the “Consternation” picked out in electric light; masts, funnel and hull all outlined by incandescent stars.

“How beautiful!” cried Sabina, whose young man stood beside her.  “It is as if a gigantic racket, all of one color, had burst, and hung suspended there like the planets of heaven.”

“It reminds me,” whispered Katherine to Dorothy, “of an overgrown pop-corn ball,” at which remark the two girls were frivolous enough to laugh.

“Crash!” sounded a cannon from an American ship, and then the white squadron became visible in a blaze of lightning.  And now all the yachts and other craft on the waters flaunted their lines of fire, and the whole Bay was illuminated like a lake in Fairyland.

“Now,” said Captain Kempt with a chuckle, “watch the Britisher.  I think she’s going to show us some color,” and as he spoke there appeared, spreading from nest to mast, a huge sheet of blue, with four great stars which pointed the corners of a parallelogram, and between the stars shone a huge white anchor.  Cheers rang out from the crew of the “Consternation,” and the band on board played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“That,” said Captain Kempt in explanation, “is the flag of the United States Secretary of the Navy, who will be with us to-night.  The visitors have kept very quiet about this bit of illumination, but our lads got on to the secret about a week ago, and I’ll be very much disappointed if they don’t give ’em tit for tat.”