er frock was to be particularly
elaborate. I felt conscious of having heaps of interesting things to
tell, and I understood exactly what Victoria means when she says she's
in one of her "pretty and popular moods."

I danced into our stateroom, where only a drawn curtain covers the open
doorway. No one was there, and the cabin was so quiet that it seemed to
greet me with a warning "S-sh!"

Down fell my spirits with a dull thud, though I didn't know why. My
joyousness changed to what storybook writers describe as a "foreboding
of disaster"; but when I have it, it's generally connected with a
lecture from Mother, so I know it only as a sneaky, "I haven't eaten
the cream" sort of feeling.

Just as I had begun to take off my frock, Louise appeared at the door
which leads into the little drawing-room. She said that if I pleased,
Madame would be glad to see me in her cabin. I hurried across to the
other state-room opposite ours, and there found Mrs. Ess Kay, in a
gorgeously embroidered pink satin Japanese thing, which she calls a
kimona. She was sitting in a chair in front of the makeshift
dressing-table, putting on her rings, and clasping bracelets on her
wrists with vicious snaps. Sally, who hadn't begun to dress, was
standing up, looking almost cross; that is, with different features
from hers, she might have succeeded in looking cross.

"Sit down, Betty, please; I want to talk to you," said Mrs. Ess Kay.

Somehow, it always makes me feel stiff when she "Betty's" me, as my old
nurse says it does with your ears if you eat broad beans.

"If I do, I shall be late for dinner," said I, just as if a minute ago
I hadn't been dying to pour out my news.

"Never mind dinner, my dear girl," replied Mrs. Ess Kay, with an air
which I do believe she tried to copy from Mother. "What I have to say
is more important than dinner. I hope what I have been hearing isn't
true."

"That depends upon what it was," I retorted, disguising my pertness
with a smile.

"Don't think I've been tattling," said Sally. "Whatever my faults may
be, _I_ haven't a Rubber Neck."

I didn't know in the least what she meant; but afterwards she explained
that if your neck is always pivoting round, to pry into other people's
affairs, it is a Rubber Neck, and I shall remember the expression to
tell Stan when I go home. He will like to add it to his collection of
strange beasts.

Mrs. Ess Kay partly turned her back upon Sally. "The dear Duchess" (she
alway