Part 2 (2/2)

”If it's a pocketbook it's mine!”

”Especially if it has money in it!”

Thus the motor girls, and their boy friends, sent merry quip and jest back and forth as they found seats in the coach, and settled down for the trip to Crystal Bay. Cora, after making sure that the girls had comfortable seats, and noting that Jack had pre-empted the place beside Marita, leaned over Bess and whispered:

”I'm going back in the next car for a little while.”

”What for?”

”Did you lose anything?” asked Belle, who overheard what Cora said.

”No, but you saw me talking to that girl on the platform; didn't you?”

”Yes, and I wondered who she was,” remarked Bess.

”She was Freda Lewis.”

”Freda Lewis! Why, I never would have known her!”

”Nor I!” added Belle. ”How she has changed! Of course you were more intimate with her than we were, Cora; but she certainly doesn't seem to be the same girl.”

”She isn't,” replied Cora. ”She and her mother are in trouble--financial trouble. I'm going back and talk to her. I want to help her if I can.”

And while Cora is thus bent on her errand of good cheer, it may not be out of place, for the benefit of my new readers, to tell a little something more about the characters of this story, and how they figured in the preceding books of this series.

To begin with the motor girls, there were three of them, though friends and guests added to the number at times. Somehow, in speaking of the motor girls, I always think of Cora Kimball first. Perhaps it is because she was rather of a commanding type. She was a splendid girl, tall and dark. Her mother was a wealthy widow, who for some years had made her home in the quiet New England town of Chelton, where she owned valuable property. And, while I am at it, I might mention that Jack was Cora's only brother, the three forming the Kimball household.

Bess and Belle Robinson were twins, the daughters of Mr. and Mrs.

Perry Robinson. Mr. Robinson was a wealthy railroad man, a.s.sociated with large metropolitan interests.

Bess, Belle and Cora had been chums since their motoring days began, when Cora had been given a car, and, after some persuasion, Mr.

Robinson also had bought one for his daughters.

I think I have already intimated that Bess was plump and rosy--a little too plump, she herself admitted at times. Her sister was just the opposite--tall and willowy, so that the two formed quite a contrast.

Marita Osborne was a newcomer in Chelton, who had soon won her way into the hearts of the motor girls, so much so that Cora had invited her to come to the bungalow at Crystal Bay.

Each year Cora and her chums sought some new form of Summer vacation pleasure, and this time they had decided on the seash.o.r.e, in a quiet rather old-fas.h.i.+oned resort, which the girls, on a preliminary inspection trip, had voted most charming. In fact they went into such raptures over it that Jack and his chums had decided to go there also.

So the boys and girls would be together.

Speaking of the boys, the two who will come in for the most consideration will be Walter Pennington and Ed Foster. Walter was perhaps a closer chum of Jack's than was Ed, the former attending Exmouth College with Jack, where, of late, Ed had taken a post-graduate course. Ed was considered quite a sportsman, and was fond of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng.

The first book of this series, ent.i.tled ”The Motor Girls,” tells how Cora became possessed of her car, the _Whirlwind_, and what happened after she got it. In that powerful machine she and her girls chums unraveled a mystery of the road in a manner satisfactory to themselves and many others.

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