"It will be a wonderful trip, no doubt," answered the mother, "and I am sure I shall enjoy it greatly, especially with all you young folks along to brighten matters up."
"It will certainly be a wonderful tour for me," declared Mrs. Laning, who had always been more or less of a home body. "Gracious! Why, I can remember when I used to think a trip of ten or twenty miles on the steam cars was wonderful. Now just to think of our going hundreds and hundreds of miles in an automobile!"
"The most wonderful part of it to me is that we can afford to have you take such a trip as that, Mother," chuckled John Laning. "Sakes alive! when I was a young man the height of my ambition was to own about fifty acres free and clear, along with a couple of horses and half a dozen cows. And now look at us—here we own over three hundred acres, got over fifty head of cattle, over two thousand chickens, and the finest orchards in this part of the state. I tell you we've got a lot to be thankful for," he added with great satisfaction.
"But I'll miss you, John, while I'm away," said his faithful wife.
"Don't you worry about me, Mother. I'd just as lief stay here and see all them big crops a-comin' in," announced the farmer. "That's fun enough for me. You go ahead with the young people and enjoy yourself. You've been in harness long enough and you deserve it."
Mr. Laning had had his ears wide open during the visit of his daughters and Dora, and before his wife and the others left for Valley Brook he called Mrs. Laning aside.
"What's this I hear about Grace going out with a young millionaire named Waltham?" he asked, curiously.
"I can't tell you much more than what you've already heard, John," she answered.
"I thought Grace had her eyes set on Sam Rover," went on the husband, looking sharply at his wife.
"That is what I thought myself. But it seems this young millionaire has been calling on his sister at Hope, and he's been taking his sister and Grace out in his automobile and acting very nicely about it. Grace seems to be quite taken with him."