A Rock in the Baltic

“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.

Dorothy Amhurst smiled when Sabina mentioned the word kindness.

“With me, of course, it’s entirely a question of money,” she admitted.

“Dorothy, I never thought it of you,” said Katherine, with an exaggerated sigh. “I wish it were a fancy dress ball, then I’d borrow my brother Jack’s uniform, and go in that.”

“Katherine, I’m shocked at you,” complained the mother.

“I don’t care: I’d make a stunning little naval cadet. But, Dorothy, you must be starved to death; you’ve never touched your lunch.”

“You seem to have forgotten everything to-day,” said Sabina severely. “Duty and everything else.”

“You are quite right,” murmured Dorothy.

“And did you elope with the captain of the ‘Consternation,’ and were you married secretly, and was it before a justice of the peace? Do tell us all about it.”

“What are you saying?” asked Dorothy, with a momentary alarm coming into her eyes.

“Oh, I was just telling mother and Sab that you had skipped by the light of the noon, with the captain of the ‘Consternation,’ who was a jolly old bachelor last night, but may be a married man to-day if my suspicions are correct. Oh, Dorothy, must I go to the ball in a dress of print?”

The sewing girl bent an affectionate look on the impulsive Katherine.

“Kate, dear,” she said, “you shall wear the grandest ball dress that ever was seen in Bar Harbor.”

“How dare you call my sister Kate, and talk such nonsense?” demanded Sabina.

“I shall always call you Miss Kempt, and now, if I have your permission, I will sit down. I am tired.”

“Yes, and hungry, too,” cried Katherine. “What shall I get you, Dorothy? This is all cold.”

“Thank you, I am not in the least hungry.”

“Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?”

Dorothy laughed a little wearily.