So, in spite of Grace’s frightening experience, the morning was a gay one for the Lakeview Hall crowd and the afternoon brought a surprise that even Bess, in her wildest dreams of the nice things that might happen to them on the boat, had never imagined.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CAPTAIN’S DINNER
“Oh, Nan, I wonder if all the girls received them! I hope they did!” Bess was waving a small white envelope in her hand. “Look, it has the boat’s flag engraved on it and the United States flag too. Isn’t it just too perfect for words!
“Nan,” Bess hugged her friend, “I’m sure, as sure as I am of anything, that it’s because of your saving Linda the way you did, that we got them.”
Nan’s face was alight too. “Oh, Bess, it isn’t either,” she contradicted. “It’s because Dr. Beulah is the person she is. The Captain was going to invite her and he thought he had to invite us too, or we would get into trouble. He doesn’t trust us since the night of the storm.”
“You old silly,” Bess was not to be gainsaid. “You are just being modest. But go on. I don’t care what the Captain thinks anyway as long as he continues to do things in the grand manner. This cabin,” she looked around it proudly—already she had sent many letters home telling friends and relatives about every little detail of its luxuriousness, “and now these invitations. Why, we are practically the belles of the boat, even if Dr. Beulah,” she said dolefully, “does try to make us remember that we are still children.”
“Oh, Bess, she doesn’t either.” Nan sprang to the defense of their preceptor. “You know she doesn’t. You know she had been just as nice as she could possibly be on this trip. She couldn’t let you wear that dress you wanted to the other night. It wouldn’t have looked right. It was, just as she said, too formal for a young person to wear. It makes you look old. She was really very pleasant about it.”
“Of course she was,” Bess calmed Nan’s ruffled feelings. “I was only fooling. She was just as sweet as she could be. Now, come, let’s go up and see if the others have received cards, too.”