After finishing school, best friends Cornelia and Emily are given permission by their parents to embark on a trip to Europe, semi-supervised by their parents who are also traveling there but on different transport. This being in the early years after the end of World War I, they're traveling by passenger ship.
Based on a true story, Cornelia and Emily are two innocents setting out to conquer their innocence and the world, or England and France anyway. Cornelia's parents pop in and out of the picture, just in time to save Cornelia from disaster when she comes down with the measles and when she gets attacked by bedbugs. Cornelia's father, Otis, was a big deal in theater and Cornelia has ambitions in that direction also. His theater connections allow the girls chances to meet some of the more famous players of that time. Plus sightseeing, shopping, dining out, meeting boys, getting to know the locals, Cornelia and Emily are having a trip to remember and a fabulous time!
They conclude the story with this touching paragraph:
"The day before our departure, we blew ourselves to a superb lunch at Prunier's, after which we went on a pilgrimage to say good-bye to some of the places we had loved best . . . the rose window in the transept of Notre Dame, the little garden of St. Julien le Pauvre, the tomb of Ste. Genevieve to thank her for having saved Paris for us, Manet's 'Olympia,' and the lights at dusk coming on up the Champs Elysees. We didn't weep, but we were awfully quiet. The thought that we were leaving it all behind brought a lump into our throats, and the feeling in our stomachs that we were in an elevator descending rapidly . . . not a gay little Paris ascenseur, but a big, grown-up, skyscaper one. It was the end of something and we both knew it. We would come back again but it would never be the same. Our breath would come fast and our eyes would smart when the Eiffel Tower rose again in the evening mist, but that would be because we remembered it from these months. There would never again be a 'first time.' Our hearts were young and gay and we were leaving a part of them forever in Paris."
This story is a real gem. First of all, it is hilarious. Two teen girls, taking their first steps into adult independence, trying to follow all the advice given to them by their parents, but failing almost immediately. Both girls were quick to abandon the safety purses given them by their moms, designed to be worn under their clothes and to hold money and passports, etc. But the purses tended to bang into the legs of their dancing partners and explaining to the guys what was happening was out of the question. And the girls had been advised by their moms to make the acquaintance of some older, respectable matronly woman passenger and become part of that woman's party. Instead they made friends among the young male passengers and never got around to getting to know a matronly lady.
Anyway, if you can find a copy of this book which was published in 1942, grab it and dive into another time and into the adventures of two American girls verging on adulthood, out on their own for the first time in their lives.
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