was loved. He next mentioned the absence of a service in the evening
and asked if I knew the purser well enough to request the use of the
saloon in the evening where he would like to have a "hymn sing-song";
the purser gave his consent at once, and Mr. Carter made preparations
during the afternoon by asking all he knew--and many he did not--to
come to the saloon at 8.30 P.M.

The library was crowded that afternoon, owing to the cold on deck: but
through the windows we could see the clear sky with brilliant sunlight
that seemed to augur a fine night and a clear day to-morrow, and the
prospect of landing in two days, with calm weather all the way to New
York, was a matter of general satisfaction among us all. I can look
back and see every detail of the library that afternoon--the
beautifully furnished room, with lounges, armchairs, and small writing
or card-tables scattered about, writing-bureaus round the walls of the
room, and the library in glass-cased shelves flanking one side,--the
whole finished in mahogany relieved with white fluted wooden columns
that supported the deck above. Through the windows there is the
covered corridor, reserved by general consent as the children's
playground, and here are playing the two Navatril children with their
father,--devoted to them, never absent from them. Who would have
thought of the dramatic history of the happy group at play in the
corridor that afternoon!--the abduction of the children in Nice, the
assumed name, the separation of father and children in a few hours,
his death and their subsequent union with their mother after a period
of doubt as to their parentage! How many more similar secrets the
Titanic revealed in the privacy of family life, or carried down with
her untold, we shall never know.

In the same corridor is a man and his wife with two children, and one