Even if the little concert had not already ended nobody could have sung just then.
“I guess we’ve left the Sound and struck the ocean;” remarked one gentleman, in a peculiar tone. “Good night all,” and he disappeared.
A lady next Miss Greatorex made an effort to extricate herself from her rugs and chair and observed:
“I’ve such a curious feeling. So—so dizzy. My head swims. Is—is there a different—motion to the boat? Have you noticed?”
Yes, Miss Greatorex had noticed, but she couldn’t reply just then. Nor was this because of her “stiffness” toward a person who had not been properly “introduced.” It was simply that—that—dear, dear! She felt so very queer herself. She would try and get to her stateroom. In any case it was very late and everybody was moving.
A petulant cry from Molly expressed her own desires exactly.
“Papa, dear Papa! What makes the folks go wobbling around the way they do? I wish they wouldn’t! I wish they would—would keep real—perfectly—still! I wish! Oh! dear!”
The Judge rose at once and, despite her size, caught up his daughter and marched off with her toward Mrs. Hungerford’s stateroom, whither that experienced voyager had as suddenly preceded him. When he came back, a few minutes later, he found that Miss Greatorex had vanished, and that Dorothy sat alone on the deserted deck wondering what in the world was the matter to make everybody rush off at once, or almost everybody. Wondering whether she should follow, and if her guardian would return and need her rugs again; yet placidly thinking over the delightful evening she had spent and how strange it was for her, “just plain Dorothy,” to be having such a splendid trip in such charming company.
“Well, lassie, are you all right? Don’t you feel a ‘little queer,’ too?”
“Yes, thank you, Judge Breckenridge. I’m right enough but I don’t know whether Miss Greatorex wants me to come to our room now or whether she’ll need her things again. She went away in a great hurry, seems if; and so—so did ’most everybody else. Funny for them all to get sleepy just in a minute so.”