“We’ve got to pack too.”
“And go to bed early, because we’ve got to get up early.”
“So as to land in Europe,” finished Babe. “Doesn’t that sound too—sweet—elegant—grand for anything. Come on and get busy, girls.”
CHAPTER IV
A DISILLUSIONMENT MADE GOOD
The next morning the rising bell rang uncomfortably early, and everybody dressed and breakfasted in nervous haste, pursued by the fear of not being ready to get off the boat at the critical moment. And then there was nothing to do for an hour or so but “just wait and wait and wait,” as Babe complained dolefully. Babe was dreadfully impatient to “land in Europe,” and found it simply tantalizing to have to hang over the railing and look at the shores of Scotland, with the little gray town of Greenock hardly a stone’s throw off. Betty, on the other hand, was willing to wait because she thought Greenock so pretty, with its curving bay, edged by a stone promenade, and its gray stone houses, all very much alike, standing in a neat row encircling the shore.
“It’s a summer resort,” she announced, having consulted her Baedeker, which she had brought up on deck to see just where they were on the map of Scotland. “I wish we could stay there for awhile. It looks so quiet and quaint.”
“It doesn’t look very exciting to me,” objected Babe. “The idea of building summer cottages of stone!”
“They aren’t cottages,” explained Babbie, “they’re villas. Don’t you know how people in English novels always go and take lodgings in a villa by the sea?”
“Oh, do let’s do that,” cried Betty eagerly. “It sounds so perfectly English.”
“I’ve been looking over some Scotch addresses that Mary Brooks gave me,” said Madeline, “and I think we ought to go to Oban. She and Marion Lawrence both said it was the most fascinating spot they’d ever seen. It’s a seaside resort too, Betty, and the address they gave me is villa something or other, so it answers all your requirements.”