Part 15 (1/2)

”Oh, there they are!” exclaimed Hazel. ”I see some one waving her ap.r.o.n!”

”That's Adele,” replied Cora. ”She knows how to wave ap.r.o.ns. Don't you remember, Gertrude, the night she served the Welsh rarebit, when she made an ap.r.o.n of our best table-piece with a string through the middle?”

Cora turned her auto to the roadside. Then she called to the cars following:

”Here we are, girls. Get your machines well in from the road.”

”Oh, what a charming place!” exclaimed Belle, who was not slow to observe the attractions of the little Grotto. It seemed all porch and vines, one of those picture places, ample for an eating house, but unsuited for anything else.

”There!” gasped Daisy; ”that's the sort of house to live in!”

”To live out of, you mean,” put in Maud. ”I can't see how one could live 'in' there.”

The cars were all motionless now. Cora and Gertrude had already ”escaped” from the college hug of Adele and Tillie. When the Chelton girls had been introduced, the vine-covered porch was actually filled with the members of the motor party.

”How splendid!” exclaimed Tillie, with that delightful German accent that defies letters and requires a pretty mouth to ”exhale.”

”Darling!” went on Adele, with all the extravagance of schoolgirl enthusiasm.

”You leave us no adjectives,” remarked Cora. ”I never saw anything so sweet. How ever did you get those vines to grow so promptly?”

”Wild cuc.u.mber,” said Adele with a laugh, ”Why, you know, dear, wild cuc.u.mber can no more help growing than you can. Isn't she tall, Tillie? I do believe you have grown inches since school, Cora.”

”Yes, mother bemoans it. My duds are all getting away from me.”

”And we have been waiting lunch for you ladies. I did hope we would not have a single visitor to-day, so that we might entertain you properly,” went on Adele, ”but two horrid men called. Wanted 'tea'; but indeed I know what they wanted--just a quiet place to talk about their old patent papers.”

”Yes, and one broke a beautiful china cup,” said Tillie.

”But he had his thumb gone,” Adele hurried to say. ”I saw him directly I went to pick up the pieces. So I suppose we could not exactly blame the man for dropping Tillie's real German cup.”

”His thumb gone!” repeated Cora absently.

”Oh!” exclaimed Hazel. ”The man we met after Paul's hold-up had lost a joint of his thumb.”

”And papa said the papers stolen were patent papers!” exclaimed Bess, all excitement.

”Hus.h.!.+” whispered Belle. ”Bess, you know father particularly said we were not to speak of that.”

If, as is claimed, the mature woman has the wonderful advantage of an instinct almost divine, then the growing girl has, undoubtedly, the advantage of intuitive shocks--flashes of wireless insight into threatening surroundings.

Such a flash was distinctly felt now through the Grotto--even the two young proprietors, who were not supposed to be really concerned, felt distinctly that ”something was doing somewhere.”

Cora sank down into a low wicker chair. Bess and Belle managed to both get upon a very small divan, while Daisy, Maud and Ray, the ”three graces,” stood over in the corner, where an open window let in just enough honeysuckle to sift the very softest possible suns.h.i.+ne about the group.

But Hazel lingered near the telephone. She had confided to Cora that Paul was not at all well when he left home in the morning, and just now she was wondering if it would seem silly for her to call up the Whitehall Company and ask to speak with her brother.

At that instant the telephone bell rang.

It sent the expected shock through the little a.s.semblage, and Cora jumped up as if she antic.i.p.ated a message.