The Jolliest School of All | Page 4

wrapped up on her deck-chair, watched the white cliffs of Dover recede from her gaze as the vessel left the port and steamed out into the Channel. It was the last of "Old England," and she knew that much time must elapse before she would see the shores of her birthplace again. What would greet her in the foreign country to which she was going? New sights, new sounds, new interests--perhaps new friends? The thought of it all was an exhilaration. Others might seem sad at a break with former associations, but as for herself she was starting a fresh life, and she meant to get every scrap of enjoyment out of it that was practically possible.
The stewardess had prophesied correctly when she described the voyage as "choppy." The steamer certainly pitched and tossed in a most uncomfortable fashion, and it was only owing to the comparative steadiness of her seat amidships that Irene escaped that most wretched of complaints, mal de mer. She sat very still, with rather white cheeks, and refused Vincent's offers of biscuits and chocolates: her sole salvation, indeed, was not to look at the heaving sea, but to keep her eyes fixed upon the magazine which she made a pretense of reading. Fortunately the Dover-Calais crossing is short, and, before Neptune had claimed her as one of his victims, they were once more in smooth waters and steaming into harbor.
Then again the kaleidoscope turned, and the crowd of passengers remingled and walked over gangways, and along platforms and up steep steps, and jostled through the Customs, and said "Rien à déclarer" to the officials, who peeped inside their bags to find tea or tobacco, and had their luggage duly chalked, and showed their passports once more, and finally, after a bewildering half-hour of bustle and hustle, found themselves, with all their belongings intact, safely in the train for Paris. Irene had caught brief glimpses of the child whom she named "Little Flaxen," whose mother, in a state of collapse, had been almost carried off the vessel, but revived when she was on dry land again: a maid was in close attendance, and two porters were stowing their piles of hand-luggage inside a specially reserved compartment. "The cross lady won't be boxed up with them at any rate," said Irene. "I saw her get in lower down the train."
It was dark when they arrived in Paris, so Irene had only a confused impression of an immense railway station, of porters in blue blouses, of a babel of noise and shouting in a foreign language which seemed quite different from the French she had learned at school, of clinging very closely to Father's arm, of a drive through lighted streets, of a hotel where dinner was served in a salon surrounded by big mirrors, then bed, which seemed the best thing in the world, for she was almost too weary to keep her eyes open.
"If every day is going to be like this we shall be tired out by the time we reach Naples," she thought, as she sank down on her pillow. "Traveling is the limit."
Eleven hours of sleep, however, made a vast difference in her attitude towards their long journey. When she came downstairs next morning she was all eagerness to see Paris.
"We have the whole day here," said Mrs. Beverley, "so we may as well get as much out of it as we can. Daddy has business appointments to keep, but you and I and Vin, Renie, will take a taxi and have a look at some of the sights, won't we?"
"Rather!" agreed the young people, hurrying over their coffee and rolls.
"I wouldn't miss Paris for worlds," added Vincent; "only don't spend the whole time inside shops, Mater. That's all this fellow bargains for."
"We'll compromise and make it half and half," laughed Mother.
A single day is very brief space in which to see the beauties of Paris, but the Beverleys managed to fit a great deal into it, and to include among their activities a peep at the Louvre, a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, a visit to Napoleon's Tomb, half an hour in a cinema, and a rush through several of the finest and largest shops.
"It's different from London--quite!" decided Irene, at the end of the jaunt. "It's lighter and brighter, somehow, and the streets are wider and have more trees planted in them. It's a terrible scurry, and I should be run over if I tried to cross the street. The shops aren't any better than ours really, though they make more fuss about them. The little children and the small pet dogs are adorable. The cinema was horribly disappointing, because they were all American films, not French ones; but that light that falls from the domed roof down on to