more than ever like the figurehead on the old ship that I had seen in my
childhood. He carried over his arm a cloak of the same sea-blue. It was
this cloak which afterward played an important part in the mystery of
Nancy's disappearance.

His quick glance swept Nancy--the ghostly Nancy in gray, with only the
blue of her eyes, and that touch of artificial pink in her cheeks to
redeem her from somberness. He shook his head with a gesture of
impatience.

"I don't like it," he said, abruptly. "Why do you deaden your beauty
with dull colors?"

Nancy's eyes challenged him. "If it is deadened, how do you know it is
beauty?"

"May I show you?" Again there was that tense excitement which I had
noticed in the garden.

"I don't know what you mean," yet in that moment the color ran up from
her neck to her chin, the fixed pink spots were lost in a rush of lovely
flaming blushes.

For with a sudden movement he had snatched off her cap, and had thrown
the cloak around her. The transformation was complete. It was as if he
had waved a wand. There she stood, the two long, thick braids, which she
had worn pinned close under her cap, falling heavily like molten metal
to her knees, the blue cloak covering her--heavenly in color, matching
her eyes, matching the sea, matching the sky, matching the eyes of Olaf.