Part 10 (1/2)

”Oh, I say!” murmured the youthful automobile driver.

But Nan paid little attention to him. Having engaged him for the trip she hustled Bess and the baggage into his car without another word to him. Finally she leaped in, too, and banged the door of the tonneau.

”There! we're all ready,” she said to the boy.

”Oh--well--if you say so,” he murmured, and obediently cranked up and then stepped into the car himself.

”Say!” whispered Nan to Bess. ”He's an awfully slow thing, isn't he? I don't see how he makes any money tooling people around in this auto.”

”What's bothering _me_,” whispered Bess, ”is how we're going to pay him?

I haven't but twenty cents left. You know I bought candy on the train, beside that lunch.”

”Not having wasted my money in riotous living,” laughed Nan, ”I can pay him all right.”

The automobile whisked through the streets of the lower town in a few moments. They pa.s.sed the lumbering 'bus with a scornful toot of the horn. In the suburbs they went even faster, although they were climbing the bluff all the time.

Lakeview Hall was alight now, and as they approached it between the great granite posts at the foot of the private driveway it looked more friendly.

A honk of the automobile-horn in notification of their approach, and immediately the cl.u.s.ter of incandescent lights under the reflector on the great front porch blazed into life. The wide entrance to the Hall, and all the vicinity, was radiantly illumined.

”Goodness!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nan. ”I guess they do meet us with a bra.s.s band!”

For, with shouts of welcome, and a great flutter of frocks and ribbons, a troop of girls ran out of the Hall to welcome the newcomers.

”Here she is, girls!”

”Walter's the boy to do an errand right!”

”Weren't we the thoughtful bunch to send him after you?”

”Hey, Linda! we're going to have the same old room, Mrs. Cupp says.”

The automobile came to a stop. The boy driver drawled:

”Some mistake, girls. I didn't see Linda Riggs at all. But here's a couple of new ones.”

Bess had uttered a horrified gasp; but Nan was almost convulsed with laughter. She could usually appreciate the funny side of any situation; and to her mind this most certainly was funny!

It was plain that Linda Riggs was popular enough with some of her schoolmates to have them welcome her with special eclat. They had engaged this boy with the automobile to meet her at the station.

In place of Linda, arriving in the motor car, Nan and Bess had usurped her place; while even now the old 'bus was rumbling up the driveway with Linda inside.

”Goodness! who can they be?” remarked one of the girls, staring at Nan and Bess.

The former was quite composed as, with her own and Bess Harley's possessions about her on the lower of the four broad steps leading up to the veranda, she drew out her purse to pay the boy for the trip from the station.

”How much?” she asked him, without observing the surprised group in her rear.

”Why--I----It's nothing,” stammered the young chauffeur.