"What's this?" interrupted Miss Carlton, coming out on the porch with a hamper of lunch for the picnic. "You've been in an airplane accident?"
"And how!" he replied, feelingly.
"Now you see, Linda! You better not go over to that field again! I'm so afraid of planes!"
"All right, Aunt Emily," replied the girl, graciously. "You needn't worry today, anyhow. We're going to the picnic in cars."
But, had Miss Carlton seen Maurice Stetson behind the wheel of his yellow sports roadster, hitting seventy-five miles an hour, and all the while keeping up a conversation not only with Linda beside him, but with the couple in the rumble-seat as well, she would not have felt so satisfied.
Nevertheless, nothing happened, and the picnic promised to be lots of fun. The girls had selected a beautiful wooded spot outside of the city, where a lovely stream widened into a small lake, deep enough for swimming.
Most of the others had already arrived in their cars, when Louise's party drove up. Two large tents, on opposite sides of the lake, had been set up early in the morning for bath-houses.
"Everybody into their suits!" cried Sara Wheeler, who seemed to be managing the picnic, because her mother was the chaperon. "First one into the water gets a prize!"
"Then I get it, without even trying," remarked Harriman Smith, a nice boy, and a particular friend of Linda's, "because I have mine on now! I got dressed in it this morning, and carried my other clothing."
"Lazy brute!" exclaimed Maurice, enviously, wishing that he had thought of such a labor-saving device.