Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach; or, Strange adventures among the orange groves

by Annie Roe Carr

"Just the same," said Nan decidedly, "I don't think we ought to accuse her until we have something definite to go on."

"Isn't that just like Nan Sherwood!" cried Bess, regarding her chum with a mixture of fondness and irritation. "Always making excuses for everybody! I suppose if we had caught Linda in the act, you would still say it must have been somebody else."

"Hardly as bad as that," said Nan, with a little laugh, adding, while a cloud passed over her face: "Goodness knows I have more reason than any of the rest of the girls for disliking Linda. She never accused any one but me of stealing. I only hope," she added, "that we don't meet her somewhere on this trip."

"Goodness gracious, Nan!" cried Bess, fairly jumping from her seat in surprise, "you don't expect to meet her, do you?"

"If I did," said Nan ruefully, "I would get right off this train and go back to Tillbury, much as I have counted on this trip. No, honey," she added, laughing at her own extravagance, "there's no need of your getting excited, for I have no idea that we shall meet Linda at Palm Beach. Only she has the most disconcerting way of popping up in places where you least expect her."

"Well, all I have to say," returned Bess, biting fiercely into a fresh chocolate and wishing it were Linda instead, "is that I wish you wouldn't put such uncomfortable ideas into my head. Here I was just about forgetting Linda, and you have to lug her into the limelight again."

Nan laughed merrily and helped herself to another of Bess's chocolates without even so much as a "by your leave."

"Cheer up," she said, with a chuckle, "I've done all the 'lugging' I'm going to for a little while. And in the meantime," she added, her voice thrilling with anticipation, "let's think of something really pleasant—Palm Beach, for instance."

"Now you are talking!" cried Bess approvingly. "I have to pinch myself about every five minutes to realize that I'm really going there. I wonder if it is really as gay as people say it is. That's where all the actresses go, you know. And millionaires and authors——"