She dreamed the romantic lady passenger with the jolly voice came to her, offering her a suit of boy’s clothing and saying, persuasively, “My nephew couldn’t go, after all. Can’t you wear these clothes of his and go in his place? Then Tommy won’t be so lonely.” In addition, the lady had pointed at Erica’s red bob, and had asked, triumphantly: “Isn’t this really what you cut off your curls for? Remember that Captain Bartlet himself told you once you’d probably want to run away to sea in his ship one day?” Erica found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding in her breast until it was almost a pain. A broad path of moonlight was shining in the windows and fell on an awkwardly wrapped bundle lying on the floor near the foot of her bed. “Tommy will be unhappy without some one to keep him cheered up,” Erica said aloud, wildly, in a scarey little voice that didn’t sound a bit like her own. “And maybe Sun Li would do more for me, if I were there in Canton—than for Tommy or Captain Bartlet.” She kept on staring at Tommy’s pathetic bundle as if it fascinated her. She tried to pull her eyes away, and couldn’t. “If I—dressed up—in those clothes,” Erica whispered, slowly, her mouth dry, “and went to Mrs. Haven, pretending to be a boy who wanted to stow away and go to China, to—to my godfather who lives there—Tommy said she’s silly and—and romantic. I bet she’d think it exciting, and take me on board as her nephew. I wouldn’t tell a lie—anyhow not in words. I wouldn’t have to say I was a boy—and—and after the ship sailed, Captain Bartlet could only scold. He wouldn’t turn back.” CHAPTER VIII Slowly Erica got out of bed and went over to the bundle Tommy had left with her earlier that evening. Her hands were cold and shook a little, so that she bungled the knots clumsily as she untied the string, but her mind was firmly made up to attempt the reckless plan which had come to her with her first waking from that very vivid dream. She was going to China on the _Spray_, if the thing could be contrived, to have a share in the search for Lis. She took Tommy’s discarded suit out of the bundle and held it up in the moonlight. It was too small for Tommy and would probably be too big for her, but it would have to do. Fifteen minutes later a slim, red-headed boy, wearing a rather battered old cap and Tommy’s coat and trousers, and carrying a bundle under one arm which contained a girl’s frock, a red, woolly cape, and a bonnet, stole on tiptoe out of the room, down the front stairs, and out of Cousin Kate Kingsley’s front door into the raw, penetrating chill of five o’clock of an April morning. It was still quite dark in the street—darker, as a matter of fact, than last evening, because the street lamps were out now. Erica shivered, partly with cold—for Tommy had left her no overcoat—and partly with sheer nervous excitement at the rash adventure to which she was committed.