A Rock in the Baltic | Page 9

mamma and I that have a right to complain. Our dresses are almost
untouched, while you can sail grandly along the decks of the
'Consternation' like a fully rigged yacht. There, I'm mixing my similes
again, as papa always says. A yacht doesn't sail along the deck of a
battleship, does it?"
"It's a cruiser," weakly corrected the mother, who knew something of
naval affairs.
"Well, cruiser, then. Sabina is afraid that papa won't go unless we all
have grand new dresses, but mother can put on her old black silk, and I
am going if I have to wear a cotton gown."
"To think of that person accepting our money, and absenting herself in
this disgraceful way!"
"Accepting our money! That shows what it is to have an imagination.
Why, I don't suppose Dorothy has had a penny for three months, and
you know the dress material was bought on credit."
"You must remember," chided the mother mildly, "that your father is
not rich."
"Oh, I am only pleading for a little humanity. The girl for some reason
has gone out. She hasn't had a bite to eat since breakfast time, and I
know there's not a silver piece in her pocket to buy a bun in a
milk-shop."

"She has no business to be absent without leave," said Sabina.
"How you talk! As if she were a sailor on a battleship-- I mean a
cruiser."
"Where can the girl have gone?" wailed the mother, almost wringing
her hands, partially overcome by the crisis. "Did she say anything about
going out to you, Katherine? She sometimes makes a confidant of you,
doesn't she?"
"Confidant!" exclaimed Sabina wrathfully.
"I know where she has gone," said Katherine with an innocent sigh.
"Then why didn't you tell us before?" exclaimed mother and daughter
in almost identical terms.
"She has eloped with the captain of the 'Consternation,'" explained
Katherine calmly, little guessing that her words contained a color of
truth. "Papa sat next him at the dinner last night, and says he is a jolly
old salt and a bachelor. Papa was tremendously taken with him, and
they discussed tactics together. Indeed, papa has quite a distinct English
accent this morning, and I suspect a little bit of a headache which he
tries to conceal with a wavering smile."
"You can't conceal a headache, because it's invisible," said the mother
seriously. "I wish you wouldn't talk so carelessly, Katherine, and you
mustn't speak like that of your father."
"Oh, papa and I understand one another," affirmed Katherine with great
confidence, and now for the first time during this conversation the
young girl turned her face away from the window, for the door had
opened to let in the culprit.
"Now, Amhurst, what is the meaning of this?" cried Sabina before her
foot was fairly across the threshold.
All three women looked at the newcomer. Her beautiful face was aglow,

probably through the exertion of coming up the stairs, and her eyes
shone like those of the Goddess of Freedom as she returned steadfastly
the supercilious stare with which the tall Sabina regarded her.
"I was detained," she said quietly.
"Why did you go away without permission?"
"Because I had business to do which could not be transacted in this
room."
"That doesn't answer my question. Why did you not ask permission?"
The girl slowly raised her two hands, and showed her shapely wrists
close together, and a bit of the forearm not covered by the sleeve of her
black dress.
"Because," she said slowly, "the shackles have fallen from these
wrists."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Sabina, apparently
impressed in spite of herself, but the younger daughter clapped her
hands rapturously.
"Splendid, splendid, Dorothy," she cried. "I don't know what you mean
either, but you look like Maxine Elliott in that play where she--"
"Will you keep quiet!" interrupted the elder sister over her shoulder.
"I mean that I intend to sew here no longer," proclaimed Dorothy.
"Oh, Miss Amhurst, Miss Amhurst," bemoaned the matron. "You will
heartlessly leave us in this crisis when we are helpless; when there is
not a sewing woman to be had in the place for love or money. Every
one is working night and day to be ready for the ball on the fourteenth,
and you-- you whom we have nurtured--"
"I suppose she gets more money," sneered the elder daughter bitterly.

"Oh, Dorothy," said Katherine, coming a step forward and clasping her
hands, "do you mean to say I must attend the ball in a calico dress after
all? But I'm going, nevertheless, if I dance in a morning wrapper."
"Katherine," chided her mother, "don't talk like that."
"Of course, where more money is in the question, kindness does not
count," snapped the elder daughter.