"Christened Dorothy, as witness godfather and godmother," murmured the
younger without turning her head.

"I think," protested their mother meekly, as if to suggest a
compromise, and throw oil on the troubled waters, "that she is
entitled to be called Miss Amhurst, and treated with kindness but with
reserve."

"Tush!" exclaimed the elder indignantly, indicating her rejection of
the compromise.

"I don't see," murmured the younger, "why you should storm, Sabina.
You nagged and nagged at her until she'd finished your ball-dress. It
is 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.