ent now, and filmy, so that she
shaded her eyes mechanically with the black scarf of her dinner-dress,
to shut out the reflections of the room. But they were not
reflections, for there was bright blue in the ball, blue and white, and
nothing of that sort was in the room.

She peered into the ball, and saw in it, clear and sharp and bright as
the little coloured prints that are pasted to the bottom of such
things, a tossing sapphire sea with little white-caps on it, a boat
with a funnel, and little boats lashed to the side, a white rail, a
tilted deck, and herself, Molly Dickett, in a striped blue and white
frock and bare head, leaning over the rail on her elbows beside a
broad-shouldered man with a cap such as officers on a boat wear. The
waves actually danced and glittered in the sun. _But the room was
nearly dark_, something whispered in her brain, and just then she had
dropped the shielding scarf, and gasped back to a sense of reality and
the ball was suddenly empty.

There had been no picture in the bottom of it, after all.

But on the bow of the little boat lashed to the side she had seen,
written in tiny, tiny letters just as the Lord's Prayer is written in
carved ivory toys of incredible smallness, the letters E-L-L-A, and
these letters had fixed themselves in her mind, they had seemed so
absurdly real and she had felt so absurdly sure of them.

"Which steamer, Miss Dickett?" the chauffeur inquired respectfully; all
the employees of the Julia Carter Sykes establishment respected Molly,
as well they might. A sudden, happy irresponsibility flooded Molly's
tired mind, and she smiled into the man's face--the old,
not-to-be-resisted Molly Dickett smile.

"The name of the boat is _Ella_, Pierce," she said cheerfully, "and
it's a small boat, not a liner. Look it up."

And as he disappeared she laughed aloud.

She was still laughing softly when he returned, looking worried.

"I think you must have told me wrong, Miss Dickett, didn't you?" he
began hurriedly, lifting out her small, flat trunk. "It's the _Stella_
you mean, isn't it? There seems to be a misunderstanding; they said
the stateroom was countermanded at the last minute, but the party's
name was Richards. It's all right now, but we nearly lost it--they're
holding her for you. There don't seem to be any more passengers--are
you sure there's no mistake?"

"Perfectly sure," said Molly, sober enough now. "I'm very much
indebted to you, Pierce."