“You didn’t either!” Bess was really awake now. “But if you did,” she continued half hopefully, “it’s too late to get breakfast in the dining-room, so we’ll just have to ring that bell over there by the door and ask the stewardess to bring our breakfast to the cabin. Just think of being able to order anything you want and having it brought to you on a big tray!”
Bess stretched luxuriously and then turned over on her side. “You know,” she said, “I feel like a movie queen. My pajamas are of satin and fine lace. My robe is long and trailing with marabou around the neck. These bed covers are made of silk and down, and your bunk up there is not really a bunk. It’s the canopy of my bed.”
Nan looked over the side. “I beg your pardon?” she asked as though she hadn’t heard.
Bess started to repeat, “Your bunk is the canopy”—but didn’t finish, for Nan was up and on her way down the ladder which stretched from the floor to her upper berth.
“I can’t sleep any longer on this canopy,” she laughed. “Moreover, I’m starved and a tray would never hold all I’m going to eat this morning. You may stay here, my movie queen, and eat daintily from a tray while your back is propped comfortably against pillows. I want bacon and eggs,” she finished, as she opened the wardrobe at the end of the berths and took out a skirt and bright sweater.
“You may spend your morning in the cabin,” she went on, washing and dressing the while, “but I’m going out on the deck and see what’s doing.” She combed her hair before the mirror over the washstands and sat down at a small dressing table while she tied a three-cornered scarf around her head. With a small hand mirror, she looked at it from all sides, and then pulled a wisp of hair out at the front and looked again. Satisfied, she put the mirror down, blew a kiss to her lazy chum, and was off.
Not waiting for the elevator, she walked up the stairs, opened a door, and stepped out. The morning sun was already high above the horizon, and the deck was bright with its light. Nan squinted her eyes. Then, as she became accustomed to the dazzle and opened them wide, she saw approaching her a merry looking, pleasant person, the ship’s hostess.
“You are—” the stranger paused and smiled at Nan.
“Nan Sherwood.” With this Nan was introduced to a group of young people her own age.
First, there was Hetty Warren, a young English girl whom Nan liked right away. She had blond hair and blue eyes and a complexion even fairer than that of most English girls. She had, she told Nan a little wistfully, just left her parents in Washington, where her father was a member of the English Embassy. Her grandmother was taking her back to London to witness an event which she said, no grandchild of hers would ever miss, the crowning of the new King and Queen.