“I suppose it is so,” sighed Ruth. “But I must have used up all my fund of cheerfulness for those poor blessés. It does seem as though the font of my jollity had quite dried up.”
“I wish Heavy Stone were here,” said Helen suddenly. “She’d make us laugh.”
“She and her French colonel are spooning down there at Lighthouse Point,” scoffed Ruth—and not at all as Ruth Fielding was wont to speak.
“Say!” Tom interjected, “I bet Heavy is funny even when she is in love.”
“That’s a reputation!” murmured Ruth.
“They are not at Lighthouse Point. The Stones did not go there this summer, I understand,” Helen observed.
“I am sorry for Jennie and Colonel Marchand if they are at the Stones’ city house at this time of the year,” the girl of the Red Mill said.
“Bully!” cried Tom, with sudden animation. “That’s just what we will do!”
“What will we do, crazy?” demanded his twin.
“We’ll get Jennie Stone and Henri Marchand—he’s a good sport, too, as I very well know—and we’ll all go for a motor trip. Jimminy Christmas! that will be just the thing, Sis. We’ll go all over New England, if you like. We’ll go Down East and introduce Colonel Marchand to some of our hard-headed and tight-fisted Yankees that have done their share towards injecting America into the war. We will——”