the overcoats with mock
concern.

"Must," laughed Armitage. "It is going to be cold and it looks like
rain. I 'd tuck my hair up under the caps as much as possible if I
were you. Damp salt air is bad for hair."

"You mean you wish us to look like men," asserted Sara.

"I merely want you to be appropriate to the picture."

Sara looked at him mischievously.

"Why not the entire uniform, then?"

"Sara!" cried Anne, as Jack ducked out of the door.

"Anne," Sara placed her hand on Anne's arm, "are you interested in Jack
Armitage?"

The girl looked at the dark burning cheeks of the handsome
full-blooming young woman in front of her.

"Don't be silly, Sara."

"I 'm not silly," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg, half humorously. "I really
want to know."

"Why?"

"Why, because if you 're not, I want you to keep in the background.
For I think I 'd--rather like to--enlist in the Navy."

Anne could not tell why, but Sara had succeeded in irritating her.

CHAPTER XVII

THE NIGHT ATTACK

As a smart young seaman escorted the two young women to the bridge and
placed them beside the six-pounder gun, the two destroyers, _Jefferson_
and _D'Estang_ and the torpedo boats _Barclay, Rogers, Bagley, Philip,_
and _Dyer_ were sweeping between Fort Adams and Rose Island in echelon
formation. Long columns of gray-black smoke pouring from the funnels,
mingled with the heavy haze of the August evening. There was a bobble
of a sea on and as the _Jefferson_ signalled for the vessels to come up
into line, the scene presented by the grim, but lithe torpedo boats,
each hurrying across the waves to its appointed position, rolling in
the sea hollows and pitching clouds of spray over grimy bows, appealed
suggestively to Miss Wellington, who stood with her hand tightly
clenched in Sara's. Huge blue-black clouds, with slivery shafts
showing through the rents the wind had made, banked the western
horizon, and out to seaward the yellow Brenton Reef light vessel rolled
desolate on the surge.

"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne, half to herself. "It is so
different from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?"

[Illustration: "Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne. "So different
from being on the _Mayfair_, is n't it?"]

Sara nodded.

"So much more fun," she replied. "Much more thrilling."

As a matter of fact, the atmosphere of expectancy filled the vessel.
Armitage, concerned with the navigation of the ship, his cap reversed
to k