"How nice your room looks!" cried Margery; and up to the deck they trooped to find that Malcom had seen that their steamer-chairs were well placed close together, and that Mrs. Douglas was already tucked in under her pretty Scotch rug.
How strange the deck looked now that the host of friends that had crowded to say good-by were gone! Already many hats and bonnets had been exchanged for caps, for the wind was fresh, and, altogether, both passengers and deck struck our party as wearing quite a ship-shape air. Mrs. Douglas held in her hand a passenger-list, so interesting at just this time, and was delighted to learn that an old-time travelling companion was on board.
"But, poor woman," said she, "she always has to spend the first three or four days in her berth, so I shall not see her for a time unless I seek her there. She is a miserable sailor."
"Oh, dear!" said Bettina, "I had forgotten that there is such a thing as seasickness. Do you think, Mrs. Douglas, that Barbara and I shall be seasick? It seems impossible when we feel so well now; and the air is so fine, and everything so lovely! Are you always seasick, and Malcom, and Margery?"
"I have never been really sick, save once, when crossing the English Channel," replied Mrs. Douglas; "neither has Malcom ever given up to it, though sometimes he has evidently suffered. But poor Margery has been very sick, and it is difficult for her to exert enough will-power to quickly overcome it. It requires a prodigious amount to do this if one is really seasick."
"I wonder what it feels like," said Barbara. "I think if will-power can keep one from it, I will not be seasick."
"Come and walk, girls," called Margery, who, with Malcom, had been vigorously walking to and fro on the wide deck, while their mother, Barbara, and Bettina had been talking.
So they walked until lunch-time, and then enjoyed hugely the novelty of the first meal on shipboard. After this, the young people went aft to look down upon the steerage passengers, and forward to the bow of the noble ship, while Mrs. Douglas took her little nap downstairs.
But alas! as the steamship took her course further into the open sea, and the wind grew more and more fresh, the three girls sank into their chairs, grew silent, and before dinner-time were among the great suffering company that every ship carries during the first days and nights of her voyage.