Lady Betty Across the Water

								

"That's all the difference in the world! You've been 'sure of
yourselves for centuries.' You've said the last word, my deah. 'Out of
the mouths of babes'--but Cousin Katherine's finished gushing to that
silly old Mrs. Van der Windt. We mustn't dare discuss these things from
our point of view any more. I reckon she would faint."
There are a good many young men on board, and some of them seemed to be
quite devoted to Mrs. Ess Kay the first day out; but she was cold to
them all, I couldn't think why, as some of them seemed very nice, and
she had always appeared rather to like being with men. I asked Sally
about it, but she laughed, and said I might perhaps solve the mystery
for myself when we were at Newport, if I remembered it then.
I never heard of such breakfasts and luncheons as they have on this
ship, and the first menu I saw surprised me so much, that I couldn't
believe they really had and could produce all those things if anybody
was inconsiderate enough to ask for them. I hardly supposed there were
so many things to eat in the world. But the captain heard me exclaiming
to Sally, so he smiled, and told me to test the menu by ordering a bit
of everything on it; he'd guarantee that nothing would be missed out.
This was at breakfast the second day; and when he saw that I ate
several dear little round things, shaped like cream-coloured doyleys,
which are called pancakes (though they aren't a bit like ours) with
some perfectly divine stuff named maple syrup, he said my taking such a
fancy to American products was a sign that I should marry an American.
What nonsense! As if I would dream of marrying, especially a foreigner.
But for all that, pancakes and maple syrup are delicious. I've had them
every day since for breakfast, after finishing a great orange four
times the natural size, which isn't really an orange, because it's a
grape fruit. You have it on your plate cut in two halves, with ice in
each, and you scoop the inside out of a lot of tiny pockets, with a
teaspoon. You think when you first see it, that you can't eat more than
half; but instead, you eat every bit, and sometimes if the morning is
hot, you even wish you could have more; though of course you wouldn't
be so greedy as to ask.
It was on the second day out, too, that all my troubles began--and in a
queer way which nobody could have guessed would lead to anything
disagreeable.
In the afternoon I was reading in my deck-chair, drawn close to Mrs.
Ess Kay's side, when that Mrs. Van der Windt whom Sally called a silly
old thing, toddled up and spoke to us. "Do come and watch them dancing
in the steerage," she said. "It's such fun."
Mrs. Ess Kay likes sitting still on shipboard better than anything
else, but it seems that Mrs. Van der Windt is so important that if all
the Four Hundred Sally told me about were pruned away, except about
twenty-five, she would be among the number left; so probably that is
the reason why Mrs. Ess Kay takes long walks up and down the deck with