“There is Jean sitting by herself. Come on over here, Jean,” and Betty hitched her chair along to make room for Jean’s.
“I was just dreaming and watching the water,” said Jean. “Don’t you love it?”
“Yes, I never get tired of it,” answered Cathalina, “but Betty and I were talking about some of the girls we know at school.”
“O, yes; what is this ‘Greycliff’ you girls talk about?”
“I’m afraid you would be sorry if we got started talking on that subject, but it is a girls’ school, preparatory, with two years of college work, and Patty, Miss West, you know, teaches there. That is how some of us found out about camp, because she is a councillor there, too. Betty and I, with Lilian and Hilary, are in a suite together. Phil calls us the ‘suite quartet’, which is an awful pun. Philip is my brother,—O, yes, you met him at Buffalo. Of course you know about Helen and Evelyn, and we were just saying that perhaps two of the younger girls at Greycliff—Isabel Hunt and Virginia Hope—would be at camp this summer. Isabel wrote that she is coming, but did not speak of Virginia, and Virginia is visiting there. She wrote a scrap of a letter only and did not think of it, I suppose. Then there is another of our especial friends whom we hope to see, Eloise Winthrop, a lovely girl that I’m sure you will like.”
“Isn’t it funny how you always get crazy about the school you go to?”
“O, I don’t know, Jean,” replied Betty. “You see Greycliff is unusual!”
“Last call for the first sitting.” Thus from time to time the different dinner calls came. Dinner on the boat started at six o’clock, but the girls had decided that they did not want tickets. This was contrary to their usual custom, for Miss West considered that regular meals were a necessary part of travel. But the late and excellent lunch at the Queen’s, together with a fine supply of sandwiches and pickles brought by Betty, and a quantity of fruit brought aboard by Miss West, made the girls lose all interest in dinner.
“Besides, you know, we’d better be careful if we have to stay on the boat all night.” This from Marjorie, as the girls were drawing their chairs close together and Betty was passing out sandwiches and pickles.
“Don’t give her any more pickles, then, Betty.”