"I went into Amelia's cabin last night," she explained to the others, "and there she was sitting on the floor with her clocks all around her.

She looked just as she did the night we first saw her in her room at Lakeview. This time, however, she had a pencil and paper in her hand. At first, I thought she had lost her mind, for there were little marks like chicken scratches on the paper."

"Oh, it didn't look like that at all," Amelia protested. "You just don't recognize a good sketch when you see one. That round mark was the sun.

The long straight one was the path it takes as it moves from the east to the west."

"But the sun doesn't move," Rhoda interrupted. "The earth does."

"Well, anyway," Laura continued her teasing, "there she was on the floor with her clocks. Each one was set at a different time and Amelia was drawing pictures. I heard her muttering to herself, 'Now, if the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and the ship travels east, then we lose no, we gain time. No, we lose time.' She couldn't make up her mind, so she began all over again, 'if the sun rises in the west, I mean the east, and we travel west, no east'--Say, which way are we traveling?" Laura had confused herself.

"East." Nan laughed. "And don't go any further or you'll have us all confused. Upstairs, near the Purser's window, there's a blackboard. On it, it says, 'Ship's pa.s.sengers please note: set your watches ahead 40 minutes each night at 9, if you wish them to agree with ship's time.'"

"I know that now," Amelia laughed, ruefully. "I saw it the morning after I'd had such a time. And you needn't act so superior," she looked at Laura, "because you sat down on the floor with me and tried to figure it out too!"

The picture that this brought to mind caused all the girls to laugh.

"Let's go up and see those photographs, right now," Laura changed the subject.

"Yes, let's," Amelia agreed. So, walking and talking the six friends left the cabin and went to an upper deck.

"Bess Harley," Nan exclaimed as they stood around the pictures. "How did you ever manage to get yours taken so many times?"

Bess blushed. She had contrived to have her picture taken more than anyone else. Now, as she thought of the number of times she had purposely posed, hoping that the photographer would see her, she felt guilty. There were pictures of her in the deck chair, posed against a life preserver, and standing at the rail. There was one of her in a bathing suit on the morning she had gone swimming, another of her in slacks when she was headed for the ship's gymnasium, and another in leather jacket and skirt when the wind was blowing so hard that her hair was standing on end.

"Anyhow, they are all cute," Nan comforted, "and I'm as jealous as anything, because there aren't any of me."

"Oh, yes, there is, Nan. Look!" Rhoda pointed her finger to a picture of Nan posted right in the center of the board. The photographer had caught her when she was totally unaware of the rest of the world. He had made a silhouette of her on the ship's rail, in the place she called her balcony, looking out over the sea.

"Oh, how nice!" Nan herself was pleased. "I'll have to send one home to Momsy." Then a sad look flashed across her face. She was lonesome sometimes amid all the new strange things for her mother, her father, and the little cottage on Amity street. There were times when she wished most earnestly that she could consult with her father or have the bright hopefulness of her mother's comfort to encourage her.

Her thoughts flashed back to her father's warning and then to the letter she had received at Lakeview Hall, the letter she had concealed from Bess. Was this hunchback who seemed to be watching her connected in any way with either of the two? Was he the one her father was warning her against? Had he had anything to do with the letter? Nan resolved to get it from the purser with whom she had left her valuables, look at it again, and see whether it contained any undiscovered clues.

"What's the matter, Nan," Bess brought her thoughts back to the present.

"Your mind seems miles away. We've all ordered our pictures, and you haven't had a word to say for the last ten minutes."

Nan started guiltily, laughed with them at her own absent-mindedness, bought photographs of herself and her friends for her memory book, and then, with them, went into the ship's store to buy souvenirs for friends back home.

So, in spite of Grace's frightening experience, the morning was a gay one for the Lakeview Hall crowd and the afternoon brought a surprise that even Bess, in her wildest dreams of the nice things that might happen to them on the boat, had never imagined.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CAPTAIN'S DINNER

"Oh, Nan, I wonder if all the girls received them! I hope they did!"

Bess was waving a small white envelope in her hand. "Look, it has the boat's flag engraved on it and the United States flag too. Isn't it just too perfect for words!

"Nan," Bess hugged her friend, "I'm sure, as sure as I am of anything, that it's because of your saving Linda the way you did, that we got them."

Nan's face was alight too. "Oh, Bess, it isn't either," she contradicted.

"It's because Dr. Beulah is the person she is. The Captain was going to invite her and he thought he had to invite us too, or we would get into trouble. He doesn't trust us since the night of the storm."

"You old silly," Bess was not to be gainsaid. "You are just being modest. But go on. I don't care what the Captain thinks anyway as long as he continues to do things in the grand manner. This cabin," she looked around it proudly--already she had sent many letters home telling friends and relatives about every little detail of its luxuriousness, "and now these invitations. Why, we are practically the belles of the boat, even if Dr. Beulah," she said dolefully, "does try to make us remember that we are still children."

"Oh, Bess, she doesn't either." Nan sprang to the defense of their preceptor. "You know she doesn't. You know she had been just as nice as she could possibly be on this trip. She couldn't let you wear that dress you wanted to the other night. It wouldn't have looked right. It was, just as she said, too formal for a young person to wear. It makes you look old. She was really very pleasant about it."

"Of course she was," Bess calmed Nan's ruffled feelings. "I was only fooling. She was just as sweet as she could be. Now, come, let's go up and see if the others have received cards, too."

"Oh, we have, we have!" Grace exclaimed excitedly when Nan and Bess finally located the others. "We all have invitations to the Captain's table for dinner tonight! Dr. Beulah says we are to go, that we may wear our very best dresses, and that we may stay up tonight for the costume ball. It's to be the very nicest night on board ship, for tomorrow morning, early, we sight land and some of the pa.s.sengers will be leaving." Grace was breathless as she finished the end of the sentence.

"But where's Laura?" Nan looked in vain for the red-headed girl.

"Yes, where is she?" Bess echoed, and then added, "Surely, she received one too. The Captain didn't leave her out, did he?" Bess looked worried, for she remembered suddenly Laura's unfortunate encounter with the commander of the boat.

"She received one all right," Rhoda responded, "and she's down in her cabin practically crying her eyes out."

"Why?" Nan and Bess chorused.

"She says she can't possibly go to that dinner and face him. She knows he will laugh at her. She says she has never been in such an embarra.s.sing position before. She almost wishes she hadn't come on this trip at all. You go, Nan, and see what you can do with her. The more I say, the harder she cries. I have never seen her in such a state."

"All right. You people stay here and I'll see if I can persuade her to come up." Nan started off, but then changed her mind and came back for the rest of the girls. "Come, let's all go down," she suggested. "I think, after all, that that would be better." So they went.

They found Laura lying across her bunk with her face buried in the pillow. Her shoulders were heaving and she was sobbing.

"Oh, Laura, don't take it so seriously," Nan stooped over the sobbing girl and gently pulled her around so that she faced her friends. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her red hair was tousled. She put a wadded, tear-wet handkerchief up to her eyes and wiped them.

"I--I----I guess you would take it seriously too," she wept, "if you couldn't go to the Captain's dinner, if you had to send regrets, saying you were ill."

"Laura, you haven't done that, have you?" The girls all gasped.

"N--N--Not yet!" Laura sobbed some more. "But it's not because I didn't try to write it. I've got to ask Dr. Beulah how to address it," she sniffled. "I guess I'll go up and ask her now." She sat up on the bunk.

"Then it will be all over with."

"Laura," Nan took her friend firmly by the shoulders. "Don't you know that you can't refuse. An invitation from the Captain is practically the same as a command."

"Well, I guess I can't go if I have scarlet fever." Laura was still crying.

"Yes, but if you have scarlet fever, we can't go either," Bess was troubled. "I don't care what you tell him, but you can't tell him that."

A look from Nan silenced Bess.

"See here, Laura," Nan shook her friend. "You've got to come to your senses. You simply have to go. You might just as well make up your mind to do it now, because you are going if we have to dress you and drag you there." Nan tried to look very serious, but somehow she couldn't suppress a twinkle that came to her eyes. Already the other girls were smiling. They knew that Laura would have to give in. The situation seemed amusing now.

"You wouldn't go either," Laura continued, "if you had said the things I did and he had heard you. The next time I'm going to keep my mouth shut."

"Of course you will," Nan sounded full of conviction. "And this time you'll go, and he will shake your hand, and you'll smile up at him, and then everything will be all right."

"Do you really think so?" Laura was already more than half willing to be convinced.