cabin.

So it was that, with the first streak of dawn, Lucile, who had been able
to lie still no longer, softly rose, fearing to awake the others, and
began to dress.

"I'm glad you are up, Lucy. I haven't slept all night," whispered Jessie,
and the dark circles under her eyes bore unmistakable testimony to the
truth of what she said. "I was afraid to get up for fear of waking
Evelyn."

"You needn't have worried," and Evelyn, who had been lying with her face
to the wall, turned over wearily. "I've been afraid to sleep--oh, girls,
I've had such awful dreams!" And she covered her face with her hands to
keep out the memory.

"We'll all feel better when we get on deck," Lucile prophesied,
hopefully. "Don't let's talk so loud; Mother is asleep."

"No, I'm not," said a tired, fretful voice from the lower berth. "As soon
as you girls get through, I'll get up."

It seemed to the girls that morning as though they would never finish
dressing. Their clothes, their hairpins, even their combs and brushes,
evaded them with demoniacal persistence, hiding under things, falling
under the berths, rolling into corners, and otherwise misbehaving
themselves, until the girls' nerves were all on edge and they were
dangerously near the verge of tears.

It was Lucile's undying sense of humor that finally saved the day.

"I feel just like the Prince in the Prince and the Pauper, when the rat
made a bed of him," she said. "Things can't be any worse, so it stands to
reason they've got to get better."

"Let's hope so, anyway," said Evelyn, halfway between laughter and tears.
"I feel just now as though I'd like to hit somebody."

"I guess it's time we left, then," laughed Lucile, and, suiting the
action to the word, she opened the door and stepped outside, the others
following.

"If I look the way I feel, I must be a sight," moaned Jessie. "I hope the
boys aren't on deck."

"Girls, look!" cried Lucile, pointing dramatically to the shaft of
sunlight filtering through the companionway. "The sun, the blessed old
sun--it's out!"

"Wonder of wonders!" cried Jessie, as they rushed up the steep steps.
"Let's go look."

The sunshine fell on them in a warm, life-giving flood. It brought out
the luster in their hair; it gleamed in their eyes; it sent the warm
color tingling to their faces; it made them want to sing, to dance, to
shout with gladness.

"Oh to think that we were growling! To think that we dared to be
down-hearted when this