Surprised blue eyes were turned from Jane to the sergeant. The latter shamefacedly tried to slip the open knife into his blouse, mumbling an excuse. The blue eyes bored him through. "I call that very stupid, Sergeant," reproved the angel of rescue. Then to Jane---- "Where are you taking all these wonderful gowns?" "To New York. I'm buyer for Hildebrand's, and----" "But, Lady Crandall, this young woman has no passports--nothing," the sergeant interposed. "My duty----" "Bother your duty! Don't you know a Worth gown when you see it? Now go away! I'll be responsible for this young woman from now on. Tell your commanding officer Lady Crandall has taken your duty out of your hands." She finished with a quiet assurance and turned to gloat once more over the gowns. The sergeant led his command away with evident relief. Lady Crandall turned to include all the refugees in a general introduction of herself. "I am Lady Crandall, the wife of the governor general of Gibraltar," she said, with a warming smile. "I just came down to see what I could do for you poor stranded Americans. In these times----" "An American yourself, I'll gamble on it!" Sherman pushed his way between the littered baskets and seized Lady Crandall's hands. "Knew it by the cut of your jib--and--your way of doing things. I'm Henry J. Sherman, from Kewanee, Illynoy--my wife and daughter Kitty." "And I'm from Iowa--the red hills of ole Ioway," the governor's wife chanted, with an orator's flourish of the hands. "Welcome to the Rock, home folks!" Hands all around and an impromptu old-home week right then and there. Lady Crandall's attention could not be long away from the gowns, however. She turned back to them eagerly. With Jane Gerson as her aid, she passed them in rapturous review, Mrs. Sherman and Kitty playing an enthusiastic chorus. A pursy little man with an air of supreme importance--Henry Reynolds he was, United States Consul at Gibraltar--catapulted in from the street while the gown chatter was at its noisiest. He threw his hands above his head in a mock attitude of submissiveness before a highwayman. "'S all fixed, ladies and gentlemen," he cried, with a showman's eloquence. "Here's Lady Crandall come to tell you about it, and she's so busy riding her hobby--gowns and millinery and such--she has forgotten. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts." "Credit to whom credit is due, Mister Consul," she rallied. "I'm not stealing anybody's official thunder." The consul wagged a forefinger at her reprovingly. With impatience, the refugees waited to hear the news.