"How admirable! And is there nothing that I can do to forward your
ambitions, Miss Amhurst?"

"I am going to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might
smile at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that
people would say I was an acquaintance of yours."

After this there was silence in the sewing room until Katherine,
followed by a maid, entered with tea and cakes. Some dress materials
that rested on a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive
Katherine, and the table, with the tray upon it, was placed at the
right hand of Dorothy Amhurst. When the servant left the room,
Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang up lightly upon it,
and sat there swinging a dainty little foot. Sabina had seated herself
in the third chair of the room, the frown still adding severity to an
otherwise beautiful countenance. It was the younger daughter who
spoke.

"Now, Dorothy, tell us all about the elopement."

"What elopement?"

"I soothed my mother's fears by telling her that you had eloped with
the captain of the 'Consternation.' I must have been wrong in that
guess, because if the secret marriage I hoped had taken place, you
would have said to Sabina that the shackles were on your wrists
instead of off. But something important has happened, and I want to
know all about it."

Dorothy made no response to this appeal, and after a minute's silence