Part 2

“But don’t get your hopes of the trip up too high, Nan; that is, the ocean part of it. I understand it is often quite rough; so there is quite a possibility of being sick.”

“Oh, Janie, be an optimist! I read recently that seasickness is nothing more than a condition of the mind. We just won’t _be_ sick.”

“Coming in?” asked Jeanette, as they passed in front of her house, which they reached at that point in their discussion.

“No, not to-night. I’m going home and visit with Mother and Dad. I have hardly seen them alone since our guest arrived.”

“All right. I’ll see you sometime to-morrow, then.”

“Yes; and we’ll make a list of what we are going to need for our travels.”

*CHAPTER III*

*BON VOYAGE*

“There is one thing I _must_ have,” decreed Nancy, a few days later, as she and Jeanette were setting out on one of their frequent shopping excursions.

“What’s that?”

“A new suitcase.”

“But Nan,” objected Jeanette, “you bought one when we went to New Orleans!”

“I know it; and when I got home from college this June, someone had kindly put a hole right through the side of it. Under the circumstances, even a person as economically-minded as you are, must admit that I can’t carry a suitcase in such a condition. I saw a new kind advertised the other day, called a wardrobe suitcase; and I thought we’d go to Leonard’s now and look at one. Dad said he would buy it for me as a sort of going-away present, if it doesn’t cost too much.”

Before long they were in the luggage store, listening to the persuasive voice of the salesman, who was enlarging on the advantages of that particular type of suitcase.

“It _is_ lovely,” agreed Jeanette, as Nancy exclaimed over the little compartment for shoes, and a larger one for hats and underwear.

“And you see,” continued the clerk, “this rod in the cover lifts out so you can hang several dresses on it, by folding them once; then you put the rod back, press it in, snap these elastic bands across, and your clothing will come out without a wrinkle.”

The price of the suitcase was not prohibitive, since a special sale was going on; so Nancy bought it, and left it to be marked.

“Now where?” asked Jeanette.

“Dresses at Sloan’s. I’ll have to get some kind of a cool silk to travel in.”

“And I must buy a silk hat.”

“I wanted a new formal gown,” continued Nancy; “but Mother convinced me that it would be better to take the rose chiffon and the cream lace that I had at college, and get new evening dresses before we go back for our Senior year.”

“That’s what my mother said too; so my blue and silver georgette and my flowered chiffon will keep company with yours. At least they will feel at home together. What about sports clothes?”

“I’m to get material for two dresses to-day; and Mother is going to make them. I want a white crêpe de chine, and a blue something or other.”

“I hope you find the blue without any difficulty,” laughed Jeanette. “I am going to use the red and white printed silk that I had last year, and buy a white ‘something or other.’”

“Then we both have pleated skirts and sweaters for the boat, and I’m going to stick in my printed crêpe. Why don’t you take yours too?”

“They would be awfully handy for filling in, even if they are old,” admitted Jeanette. “Anyway, they look well; so no one but you and me will know that they’re not new.”

“Mother thought that would be plenty to take in the line of dresses. I’ll wear my travel coat, of course, and put the white flannel in my _new wardrobe suitcase_.”

“How proudly you say that!”

“We really could manage better if we took one trunk, as we did to New Orleans——”

“Yes, but Miss Ashton thought that since we’d be moving about so much in Nova Scotia, it would be much better to take just suitcases; and, she added, as few as possible.”

“Have you heard anything more from her? This is the first of August.”

“No, we haven’t. Perhaps there will be some word when I get home.”

After dinner that evening, the Grant family strolled down to the Pembroke home.

“Oh, come in, come in,” said Mr. Pembroke, holding open the screen door. “I was very late in getting home, and we’re still at table; but you won’t mind coming out into the dining room.”

“And you’re just in time to have dessert with us,” said Mrs. Pembroke, making room for them at the table.

“But we’ve had our dinner,” protested Mrs. Grant.

“Even so, you can surely eat some lemon sherbet,” said Nancy. “Mother made heaps of it to-day.”

“I never could refuse sherbet,” sighed Jeanette. “I just love it.”

Nothing was said about their real errand until the sherbet was finished, and they had all gathered on the wide front porch where the moon, shining through the vines, made a leafy pattern on the floor.

“We heard from Lois to-day,” began Mrs. Grant.

“We’re not going!” thought Nancy, quick to detect the reluctant note in her voice.

“Things are not going to work out quite the way she hoped,” went on Jeanette’s mother. “Madelon, poor child, feels that she can not possibly leave her foster mother this summer——”

“How is that?” asked Mrs. Pembroke.

“It seems that the woman is laid up with an attack of rheumatism, and has no one to take care of her——”

“But where is her husband?” interrupted Nancy.

“He has to work in the fields, getting in the winter crops; so she is alone all day long,” replied Mrs. Grant. “Madelon wrote Lois that she herself is terribly disappointed at having to give up the Nova Scotia trip, but since her foster mother was so very good to her when she was little, she really felt it would not be right to leave her in this emergency. And I’m afraid we shall all have to admit that she is right.”

“The poor child!” murmured Mrs. Pembroke.

“Yes, I feel very sorry for her, especially since I imagine, from what Lois says, that her patient is very _im_patient.”

“However,” continued Mrs. Grant briskly, after a few minutes’ silence, “we cannot help Madelon by giving up our own plans. Lois suggests that the girls ask one of their friends to take Madelon’s place, since there are two staterooms reserved——”

“Martha!” cried Nancy and Jeanette in one breath.

“Let’s wire her right away!” exclaimed Nancy, jumping up.

“Just a minute,” protested Mrs. Grant, catching hold of Nancy’s arm. “Lois is unfortunately out on a case, and will be able to get off only in time to meet you girls at the boat. She closed the apartment for the rest of the summer, before she left, thinking that Madelon would be back to entertain you; but——”

“Oh, that’s all right; we can go to a hotel,” interrupted Nancy.

“Is it necessary to stay overnight in Boston?” inquired Mrs. Pembroke, anxiously.

“Is is if they go down by day,” replied her husband.

“And we want to,” said Nancy quickly. “I hate to travel at night. You never sleep well, and you don’t see a thing!”

“It will be all right,” said Mr. Grant. “They will have to learn how to look after themselves sometime. Why not begin now?”

“Good for you!” cried Nancy. “One would think we had never gone anywhere alone. Remember the Rideau? And way down to New Orleans? And we didn’t get into any difficulties. We may stay at the hotel overnight; mayn’t we, Moms?”

“If the rest of you are satisfied, I suppose so,” replied her mother, somewhat reluctantly.

“Under the circumstances,” said Mrs. Grant, “I thought it would be better to omit the sight-seeing trip, and go down on Saturday. The boat sails Sunday afternoon. Perhaps when you get back, Lois will be able to go about the city with you,” she added, seeing the disappointed looks on the faces of both girls.

“Come on, Janie, help me wire Martha now that we have full particulars to give her,” urged Nancy.

“Let’s write a letter, so we can tell her everything. If we put a special delivery stamp on it, and run downtown to mail it, she’ll get it in the morning.”

This was done; and the nest day a wire arrived from Martha, reading

GLORIOUS MEET YOU AT SOUTH STATION BOSTON SEVEN THIRTY P M AUGUST TENTH

So busy were the girls during the next few days that time simply raced along; and almost before they realized it, they were on the train bound for Boston.

“We’ve chased around so constantly for the past week,” said Nancy, when the yards were left behind and the train began to speed up, “that I’m _dead_.”

“So am I. Those last two parties nearly finished me.”

“Imagine, having one last night and one the night before! It is awfully nice of people to entertain for us, but shouldn’t you think that they would know we’d be too busy for such things?”

“Yes; but since they were given especially for us, we could hardly do other than go.”

“No-o-o,” yawned Nancy. “But I’m going to make up a little sleep between here and Albany. We’ve seen this road before. Then when we get to the Berkshires, I’ll be all rested and be able to enjoy them.”

The day passed quickly and quietly, for the girls were really very, tired. But riding on a good train is soothing; so when they came to a stop in the big South Station, they felt equal to anything. Close to the main entrance to the waiting room, they spied Martha; and the three fell upon one another regardless of the crowd hurrying in both directions. In a short time they were in their rooms at the hotel—a single and a double, with a bath between.

“Let’s get something to eat before we unpack and go to bed,” proposed Nancy. “We had so much sweet stuff on the train, that I feel the need of hot muffins and tea. And I do hope they have toasted English muffins here. I just love ’em with nice, hot, Orange Pekoe tea, with a thick slice of lemon floating around in it.”

“I want a club sandwich,” declared Martha, as they seated themselves at a small table in the café of the hotel.

“I’m going to order chicken bouillon and rolls,” decided Jeanette. “Isn’t it funny, no matter how much we like sweets, it is so easy to tire of them?”

They went out for a little walk, and then went to their rooms, after which each of the girls wrote a short note home letting their people know that they had “arrived safely.”

“Now, I’ll unpack both cases, while you take a bath, Janie,” said Nancy. “Then, while I bathe, you can put the clothes away.”

Jeanette shut herself in the bathroom, but presently Nancy came to the door.

“Janie, do you know where the key to my suitcase is?”

“No. You put it in your bag when we left home; and if it isn’t there, then I don’t know where it is.”

“Well, it isn’t there.”

“Look again, Nanny,” advised Jeanette; for Nan was always losing things, and then discovering them in some odd corner. When she came out of the bathroom, however, a distressed, pale-faced Nancy was bending over the contents of her bag, which she had turned out on the dresser.

“I’ve looked everywhere, Janie; and it simply isn’t anywhere. I must have pulled it out of my bag with a handkerchief, or tickets, or something, and lost it. What shall I do?”

“It’s lucky you put your night things in with mine, so you can get along without your case to-night.”

Jeanette was carrying a hat box, besides her suitcase; and the girls had used it in common, so as not to have to unpack everything at each stop.

“Yes,” wailed Nancy, “but I haven’t a dress to wear to church to-morrow; or a hat.”

“Well, we’ll try to have it opened; but if we can’t, you’ll just have to wear what you wore to-day,” replied Jeanette, going to the telephone.

The hotel locksmith came up; and, after working for some time, he said that much as he hated to do it, he’d have to force the locks.

“And don’t close that,” he advised them on leaving the room, “until you are sure you want it closed; for it may lock again.”

By that time it was nearly midnight; and the girls fell asleep as soon as their heads touched the pillows.

The following morning was spent in going to church, and wandering about the streets near the hotel.

“I wish we could take a ride somewhere,” said Nancy, looking longingly at the big sight-seeing busses which were rolling in all directions.

“So do I; but we might not get back in time to sail,” replied Jeanette. “It is nearly lunch time now; and you know we were going to get on board early. Miss Ashton is to meet us there an hour before sailing time.”

“Curtis wrote me,” observed Nancy, as they reentered their hotel, “to have a very light, simple lunch; and to go easy on the first meal on shipboard.”

“Why?” demanded Martha. “Does he think you ought to go on a diet?”

“No, goose; so we’d be less likely to be sick. He didn’t mean just me; he meant all of us.”

“Well, grateful as I am for his advice, I’m starved; and I’m going to eat.”

“All right, Mart,” laughed Nancy; “but don’t say that you weren’t warned.”

The luncheon menu was very attractive; but Nancy and Jeanette sternly repressed their desires for a quantity of rich food. They ate simple things, and ate them sparingly.

Immediately after luncheon they packed; and as Nancy closed her suitcase, sure enough, it locked!

“Don’t worry,” advised Jeanette. “You won’t need it on the steamer; and somebody in Nova Scotia will be able to open it. Anyway, you couldn’t have carried it about with you with the lid open.”

“But the customs!”

“Let the customs officer open it. He’ll have all kinds of keys.”

“But he’ll think I’m smuggling in Heaven knows what.”

“Then it’ll be a good joke on him when he doesn’t find anything,” chimed in Martha. “You should worry.”

On the dock, Miss Ashton was waiting for them; and after greetings were over, they gave their luggage to a porter. After going through several passages, sheds, and gates, they finally went up the gangplank, and on board.

Their two staterooms were nearly opposite each other, on the main deck.

“Who is going to be my partner?” inquired Miss Ashton, looking at the three girls.

“I, if you want me,” replied Martha. “It would be a crime to separate the two inseparables.”

“That was nice of Mart,” whispered Nancy, as they entered their stateroom, and put things in order.

“We must go up on the promenade deck, girls,” called Miss Ashton presently, “and get our chairs placed where we want them. The crowds will soon be coming on board, and the desirable places will all be taken.”

They decided on the right side of the steamer, near an enclosed portion of the deck, which would help keep off some of the wind.

“We’d better each have a rug, too,” said Miss Ashton, to the deck steward, who was putting tags on the chairs.

“What are those for?” asked Martha.

“Your stateroom number is on the tag; and no one but the holder of that room can use the chair. There is no danger, then, of finding it occupied when you come back from a stroll.”

The girls walked about in the sunshine, inspecting the boat and their fellow passengers, and looking at Boston, spread out along the water front.

Down at the purser’s office was the usual crowd trying to straighten out reservations; to get a better stateroom, or to get some kind of accommodations when there were no more to be had. Women with small children wandered aimlessly about the steamer, or found cozy corners in which to settle down. Many of the passengers watched from the port side while dozens of automobiles were put on board. A small baby cooed delightedly over its bottle, as it lay on a settee in the salon, blissfully oblivious of the noise and confusion all about.

Soon came the cry—“_All ashore who are going ashore!_”

Passengers bade good-bye to friends and relatives who had accompanied them on board. The great cables were released, the gangplank was pulled in, and the steamer began to move slowly and majestically away from the wharf.

*CHAPTER IV*

*ON THE HIGH SEAS*

“Oh!” cried Martha, when the steamer was well away from Boston, and headed northward, “I’m frozen!”

“Spread your rug over the chair; then sit down and fold the sides over you,” directed Miss Ashton. “You’ll be much warmer that way.”

They all followed her advice, and lay cozily watching the sunset; while the deck trotters paced back and forth in front of them.

“First call for dinner!” called a colored porter, passing along the deck, and accompanying his words by strokes on a brass gong.

“How about it?” asked Martha. “I’m hungry.”

“Go down if you like, Mart,” replied Nancy. “Jeanette and I are going to stay right here.”

“Right here! And not eat at all?” gasped Martha.

“A bit later the steward will bring us some sandwiches and ginger ale.”

“Ginger ale in this cold wind!” exclaimed Martha. “You’d better have it heated.”

Nancy laughed. “An old Frenchman up in Canada told us that if we’d drink ginger ale on shipboard, we’d never be seasick; and we’re going to try it out.”

“I’ll go down with you, Martha,” said Miss Ashton, getting up and throwing her rug over Nancy and Jeanette, who were shivering in spite of their own heavy ones. “I’m a good sailor; so nothing bothers me.”

The wind increased, and the ocean got choppy as soon as it grew dark; so the girls had their chairs moved into the enclosed deck, but near the door so they had plenty of ocean air.

“How do you feel, Nan?” asked Jeanette a bit anxiously, after they had finished their simple lunch.

“Mighty dizzy if I sit up; but deliciously comfortable as long as I lie back quietly. I feel as if I could stay here for hours.”

“That is the way with me, too.”

Some time later Miss Ashton came out on deck, and she was alone.

“Martha has succumbed,” she said, in reply to the girls’ questions. “The motion is much more noticeable in the dining room, and that, combined with the odor of food, about finished her. I put her to bed, and left her in the care of our stewardess. She’ll be all right soon, and will probably go to sleep.”

“Poor old Mart!” commented Nancy. “If she’d only stayed out of the dining room. But if she had,” she added, “then we would have been certain that she was already sick. Mart likes to eat even more than I do.”

The pacers of the deck increased in number, and soon there was a regular procession of people trying to see how many times they could encircle the ship. It was interesting to watch the different gaits. Some walked so well, with a free, rhythmic swing, as if thoroughly accustomed to the exercise, and enjoying it. Others, apparently, were doing it because they thought it was “the thing to do,”—and were making pretty hard work out of it.

“I’m walking all the way to Yarmouth,” panted a fat man, on his sixth round. The next time the parade passed in front of the trio, he was missing.

“I suppose he has collapsed somewhere,” said Jeanette.

“Who will be missing when they pass again?” wondered Nancy. “I bet it will be the pretty little girl with the brown curls.”

It was. From this point on the walkers dropped out rapidly, and finally only three girls of about Nancy’s age remained.

“I’m going to follow them and see how they do it,” exclaimed a boy of about fourteen, springing up from a near-by chair, and pacing after the girls, imitating exactly their long strides and swinging arms. On his return, he dropped exhausted into his chair, without volunteering any information to the amused spectators. The three girls continued to pass by regularly. The motion of the boat did not seem to disturb them at all; they appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely.

“Let’s go to bed,” proposed Jeanette, suddenly.

“Not a bad idea,” replied Nancy, getting up so quickly that she lost her balance and fell back into her chair. “My, but I’m dizzy!”

With Miss Ashton’s help she finally managed to get on her feet again. By this time the motion of the boat was very pronounced, and walking was a difficult business. But the girls managed, by clinging to each other with one hand, and to various railings and door frames with the other, to get safely down to their stateroom. There the motion was a bit less noticeable; so they had no difficulty in preparing for bed.

The fresh salt air had made them very sleepy, and they knew nothing more until the ship’s whistle began to blow at regular intervals.

“What do you suppose is the matter now, Janie?” Nancy asked anxiously.

“Fog, I imagine,” replied Jeanette sleepily.

“Had we better get up and dress?”

“What time is it?”

“About half-past two.”

“Goodness, no! Go to sleep again. If there is any danger, the big gong will be sounded.”

“How do you know? Who told you about that?”

“Sign—downstairs,” and Jeanette was fast asleep, while Nancy thought of all the stories she had ever read which dealt with the horrors of ships caught in the fogs. But after a while she too went to sleep again.

The whistle was still blowing when they got up at six o’clock, although the steamer was anchored—somewhere.

“When do we get in?” asked Nancy of a porter who passed their door just as she was peering out.

“Soon as the fog lifts, madam, whenever that is. We’re in the harbor now.”

Miss Ashton and a pale-faced Martha appeared at that moment, and they all went to the dining room. While they were having breakfast, the fog lifted, and the sun crept out rather cautiously. Then the excitement of disembarking began.

Passengers surged in all directions. The ship’s officers and crew were everywhere. Baggage was piled along the corridors, and people stumbled over it at almost every step.

Nancy had explained their locked suitcase to their porter, who promised to do his best to get it through the customs. While they were waiting for him in the big shed where the baggage was spread out on large tables for inspection by the customs officials, Nancy spied, on a table directly in front of them, a suitcase very much like her own.

“I wish I could get hold of the key to that,” she exclaimed, pointing the bag out to Jeanette.

“But I’m afraid you can’t.”

Their porter joined them at that moment, and they went quickly out onto the wharf and over to the train for Halifax, which was waiting near by. To this day they do not know how the porter got Nan’s suitcase through the customs, for it was still locked when they got onto the train.

“How funny!” exclaimed Martha, when she saw, instead of the regulation swinging chairs of a parlor car, big willow chairs upholstered in green velvet, but devoid of springs. These were not fastened to the floor in any way; so everybody placed hers as she pleased. As a result, walking down the aisle presented quite a problem.

When the train began to pull out, Nancy happened to glance across the aisle; and nearly fell out of her chair.

“Janie!” she whispered, “there is the very same suitcase we saw in the customs.”

Without waiting for a reply, she went across to the gray-haired woman who occupied the seat opposite hers.

“Pardon me, madam,” she said, a bit breathlessly, “but have you the key for that suitcase?”

“Why, yes,” replied the woman, in some surprise.

“And might I borrow it?” she asked, going on to tell the reason for her strange request.

The woman was only too glad to accommodate her, and was as pleased as the girls themselves when the key opened Nancy’s suitcase.

“Wasn’t that the strangest coincidence?” asked Nancy, as they settled back to enjoy the scenery; and they all agreed with her.

“No one but Nancy,” observed Jeanette, with a smile at her friend, “would have had the problem solved so easily. She is always getting into difficulties, and being taken out of them. Most of us would have gone through the country with our things safely locked in.”

“Now, girls,” said Miss Ashton, “what do you know about this country?”

“Very little,” replied Nancy, “except that the scene of Longfellow’s _Evangeline_ is laid here. And I can readily see, even after the bit of the country we have passed, why he spoke of the ‘forest primeval.’ There is plenty of forest here all right.”

“I meant to look up some information before we started, but I didn’t have a minute,” said Jeanette.

“I vote that Miss Ashton tell us all we should know,” proposed Martha.

The motion was seconded, and passed unanimously; so they moved their chairs into a cozy group, and Miss Ashton produced a small map.