“Are—are you back already?” cried Dorothy, somewhat wildly.
“Already! Why, bless me, I’ve been away an hour and a quarter. You dear girl, you’ve been asleep and in slavery again!”
“I think I was,” admitted Dorothy with a sigh.
CHAPTER VI —FROM SEA TO MOUNTAIN
THREE days later the North Atlantic squadron of the British Navy sailed down the coast from Halifax, did not even pause at Bar Harbor, but sent a wireless telegram to the “Consternation,” which pulled up anchor and joined the fleet outside, and so the war-ships departed for another port.
Katherine stood by the broad window in the sewing room in her favorite attitude, her head sideways against the pane, her eyes languidly gazing upon the Bay, fingers drumming this time a very slow march on the window sill. Dorothy sat in a rocking-chair, reading a letter for the second time. There had been silence in the room for some minutes, accentuated rather than broken by the quiet drumming of the girl’s fingers on the window sill. Finally Katherine breathed a deep sigh and murmured to herself:
“‘Far called our Navy fades away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire.
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.’
I wonder if I’ve got the lines right,” she whispered to herself. She had forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and was quite startled when Dorothy spoke.
“Kate, that’s a solemn change, from Gilbert to Kipling. I always judge your mood by your quotations. Has life suddenly become too serious for ‘Pinafore’ or the ‘Mikado’?”