“Oh!” gasped Nan.
“You are an awful chump, Walter,” observed the girl who had spoken before. “Grace said you could do an errand right; but it seems you’re quite as big a dunce as your sister.”
“Grace is not a dunce, Cora Courtney!” exclaimed the boy, with some show of spirit, as he started his car, not having shut off his engine. “Good night,” he said to Nan, and was gone around the curve of the drive as Charley brought his lazy horses to a halt before the door.
“Here I am, girls!” cried Linda Riggs, putting her head out of the ’bus window. Then she saw Nan and Bess standing on the steps of the portico, and she demanded involuntarily:
“How did those two girls get here ahead of me?”
CHAPTER IX
THE RED-HAIRED GIRL
“Well! I must say it’s a good joke on you, Linda,” said the tall girl, called Cora Courtney, in response to Miss Riggs’ observation.
“What do you mean?” snapped the railroad magnate’s daughter.
“Why, they came up from the station in the auto we girls sent after you. You know it’s against the rules for us to go down into the town so late, so we couldn’t send a delegation for you; but that little Grace Mason said her brother would bring you up.”