CHAPTER VI

ADVENTURES AHEAD!

There was a murmur of surprise in the room as Dr. Prescott made her announcement. She raised her hand to quiet it and waited a moment before she went on.

"Much as I would have liked to have all of you go," she continued finally to the expectant girls before her, "that was impossible. So, it was necessary to choose those girls who have been outstanding in one way or another since they have been here at school. Another year, there will be more of you able to go, for I hope on this trip to be able to establish contacts that will make exchange scholarships between Lakeview Hall and similar schools abroad, possible. Therefore, to those who have that keen desire to make the trip, to be explorers too, and do not find their names on the list which I shall read presently, I want to say, 'Don't be too disappointed.'

"Most of you are younger than the girls who have been chosen, and your opportunity will come when you are a little older. Then you may profit by the experiences that we shall have on this first trip, yes, and by our mistakes too, for, in a sense, we shall be explorers setting out for strange countries. We are going to find out for sure whether the things we have been reading and hearing about for these many years are true. We are going to see whether, if we board a boat in New York and sail east, we really come to a continent called Europe on our maps.

"Those of you who follow after, will but verify our findings and will have as strange and wonderful experiences then, as we shall have now. So, again I say, you will not be the girls I think you are, if you do not, after the list is read, rally round those girls who are going. Help them all you can. There is much to do between now and the time they sail, and they and the school will need your help.

"Now after conferences with your parents and teachers, I have chosen and secured permission for the following six girls to go: Nan Sherwood, Amelia Boggs, Grace Mason--"

The room was tense with suspense as she paused to clear her throat, for she was excited too, almost as excited as the girls themselves.

"Rhoda Hammond--" She smiled over at the girl, for she was fond of this proud southern girl, so different, she thought, than the rest of her brood.

"Laura Polk and--"

Nan put her arm around Bess' shoulder. The same question was in both their minds. Could it be possible that Bess' name was not on the list?

"Elizabeth--Harley!"

The room was in a hubbub. Nan was kissing Bess and Bess kissing Nan; Rhoda, shaking hands with Laura; Laura, telling Grace not to cry; Dr. Beulah Prescott, looking as though her customary serenity was most difficult to maintain; and Professor Krenner was smiling his kindly smile on all of them.

Everyone shook hands with everyone else and the girls that weren't going were so lifted up by the excitement that they hardly knew who was going and who was not. In the commotion, Rhoda somehow or other managed to pour the tea, and Amelia, Bess, Nan, Laura, and Grace to pass the sandwiches and olives and pickles and cakes and nuts and candies, but no one, as Rhoda dolefully remarked afterwards, knew what they were eating.

"The refreshment committee could have served mounds of spinach," she said, "instead of molded boats of ice-cream, and no one would have been the wiser." Maybe so. At any rate, the little round sandwiches, the long narrow sandwiches, and the sandwiches shaped like balls and covered with cheese, were all eaten to the last crumb. The olives, pickles, and nuts disappeared. Finally, the ice cream and fancy cakes were all gobbled up, too, so that when the matron of the Hall had the maid wheel out the tea-wagon, none of Rhoda's refreshments were left.

It was quite the nicest party Lakeview Hall had ever had. That night no one slept very soundly, least of all the six girls on Corridor Four who were going to England for the Coronation of the King and Queen.

All rules, Dr. Prescott, had wisely said, would be suspended for the one night. Though Mrs. Cupp shook her head lugubriously over the "goings on", at ten o'clock that night Laura, Grace, Amelia and Rhoda found themselves by one accord collected in Bess and Nan's room.

"What if it's all a dream?" Rhoda asked as they lounged about on the day-bed and in the easy chairs. "What if we awaken tomorrow and find that none of it's true, that it is as we thought when we planned the party in the first place? What if we find that only Nan is going after all?"

"That wouldn't be a dream. That would be a nightmare," Laura answered. "The thing I can't understand is, how I managed to get in under the wire. I was never more surprised in all my life than I was when she read my name. Imagine me, the red-headed cyclone from nowhere, going to Europe. Even my well-known imagination fails at the prospect. I can believe some of my own stories quicker than this one that the powers that be have thought up. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. I never thought that I would live," she said as though she was at least a hundred, "to see the day when I would admit that."

"Nor did I either," Nan said contentedly. How pleased she was that all her friends were going! "Remember the night we sat up like this in this very room and talked of going to Florida. We thought nothing could be so grand as that! Now the whole lot and caboodle of us," she went on inelegantly, "are going on a little jaunt over to Europe."

"Yes," Laura laughed and tried to yawn, "it's all in a day's work."

"The thing that tickles me," Bess spoke up at last, she had been quite silent since the party, unable yet to accept the fact that she was, after all, going to Europe with her chum, "is the way Dr. Beulah kept my name until last. Did you see the twinkle in her eye when she finally read it off? I almost died of suspense when she said 'Elizabeth' and then hesitated for so long before she said 'Harley'."

"I did, too," Nan said. "Really, Bess, if your name hadn't been on that list with all the others I would have wept bitter tears with you. I don't believe I could have gone without you."

"Nan, do you mean that, honestly?" Bess asked.

"Honest and truly," Nan reiterated. "But, girls," she cried suddenly to them all, "there's something I know that none of you do."

"What is it?" they all chorused.

"Oh, I don't know whether I ought to tell or not," Nan teased.

"Nan Sherwood," Bess threatened, "if you don't break right down and tell us at once I'll--I'll--I'll throw this pillow at you." With this, she picked up one big soft pillow and raised her arm as though to pitch it right at Nan.

"I'll give up," Nan capitulated amid much laughter. "Do you know," she said slowly and solemnly as though to give her words greater weight, "That Professor Krenner is going to Europe, too, this summer, that he will be in London when we are, and that he will take us on some of the sight-seeing tours that we are to take?"

"Oh, that's nothing," Grace Mason depreciated. "I know something better, that none of you know. My mother and father are going to London and they are going to meet us there before we leave! What's more, they are going to take Walter with them!"

Nan blushed. She had been secretly wondering whether or not Walter was going to get a chance to go to Europe this summer. She had been reluctant to ask Grace, because she hated so to be teased. Now she tried to be nonchalant about it.

"Oh, that's nice," she said, trying to act very much disinterested. The girls exchanged significant glances.

"Yes, _isn't_ it," they emphasized.

Nan was dying to ask how it happened that Walter was going and who it was that had told Grace, but she didn't dare to ask any questions. She held her peace and hoped that someone else would solve the riddle.

For a few moments, no one said anything. It was like a mutual conspiracy to tantalize Nan, but after a while, Bess' own curiosity got the better of her. "How do you know, Grace," she asked, "surely no mail has come through to you lately?"

"Not a particle!" Grace exploded. "But Dr. Beulah says that everyone has been so busy with these plans, writing back and forth, checking and rechecking on details, that there was no time to write just ordinary letters. It was she who told me that dad is going over on business and that Walter and mother are going along with him. Why, I'm almost as pleased as Nan," she tormented her friend further, though she was secretly pleased that Nan liked her brother so much.

"But tell me, Nan," she begged. "What were you and Dr. Beulah talking about so earnestly in the corner over your tea. I wanted like everything to interrupt, but even though everything was so informal that no less a person than Mrs. Cupp condescended to congratulate us, I hesitated to break in on one of Dr. Beulah's tete-a-tetes. I hope she doesn't scare the life out of me, while we are away. Imagine, being with her every day, eating--you do eat on a boat, don't you?--at her table, walking the deck with her, and perhaps even sharing your cabin with her!"

Nan laughed heartily at Grace's last exclamation. "Why, Grace Mason," she burst forth, after she had wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, "If you were dressed in clothes instead of those pajamas, I'd take you by the ear right now and march you straight over to Dr. Beulah's apartment and introduce her to you. She doesn't bite. She's one of the nicest, if not the very nicest, person I have ever known. I can't imagine a pleasanter person in all this wide world to take us on this trip.

"She was telling me," she added as an afterthought and in answer to Grace's question, "that we are to go over on a steamship line that will land us in Glasgow, for we are to stop first at Emberon. It seems some distant relatives of mine want to be the first to welcome us when we land."

"What fun!" Bess exclaimed. "All the words about going sound like magic, don't they? Sailing, walking on deck, landing, and passports and visas and going through customs. Do you know," she admitted, "it almost scares me, when I think of all the strange new things that are going to happen. Why, we will be foreigners in a strange country!" she ended in amazement.

"Yes, and I hope they don't treat us as we treat them sometimes," Nan added.

"Well, they hadn't better," Bess retorted indignantly, as all the girls joined heartily in laughing at her. Bess laughed too, when she realized what she had said, "What I mean is--"

"Never mind, Bessie," Nan comforted. "We know you are not as rude as you sound, and that you don't mean half of what you say," she ended teasingly.

"Oh, I don't care what you say," Bess returned nobly, "I feel so happy that I am going to be on that boat with all of you that there is nothing that you could say that would bother me."

"Not even," Laura goaded her, "the statement that we are going over cabin class while Linda Riggs is going first class on the same boat."

"It's not true," Bess denied without thinking.

"Of course it isn't, Bess," Rhoda looked reprovingly across at Laura. "No one has heard a thing about Linda for months now. She might just as well be living in another world so far as we are concerned."

"I wish she was." Bess pouted somewhat as she made the statement. The truth was that she was secretly triumphant at the thought that if Linda was going to Europe, she was too. She half hoped that somewhere they would meet, that sometime she would be able to embarrass Linda as Linda had frequently, in the past embarrassed her. But even as the thought crossed her mind, Nan whisked it away by saying, "I wonder what it will all be like!"