"I like your mother and your sister and your home so much, Rebecca Mary," Granny said when they had waved a last good-by before they turned the corner.
"So do I!" exclaimed Richard heartily.
"I do, too," repeated that echo, Joan. "Am I to talk to you on the way home, Granny, dear?"
"If you think it will make the ride pleasanter," Granny obligingly told her. "But you must not be surprised if I doze in the middle of your story. Motor riding does make me sleepy."
The way to Mifflin had led them down the river and the way to Spirit Lake took them back through a rich farming country. Richard astonished Rebecca Mary by the ease with which he could distinguish young wheat from oats and oats from barley or buckwheat when he was passing a field at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. The fields were only a green blur to Rebecca Mary. They reached Spirit Lake just at sunset and were pleasantly surprised to find Stanley Cabot perched on the railing of the hotel veranda smoking a cigarette. He jumped up and threw his cigarette away as he came to meet them.
"How pretty it is!" Rebecca Mary looked around with shining eyes. "What is that down by the lake?" And she nodded toward a screened pavilion which wore a gay necklace of colored lanterns.
"That's the dancing pavilion," Stanley told her eagerly. "Want to run over and have a fox trot? There's just time before your dinner will be ready."
Rebecca Mary's eyes sparkled. "Shall we?" But she said it to Richard instead of to Stanley.
"Sure. Come along." And Richard held out his hand.
"The dickens!" Stanley looked after them as they ran to the pavilion. "I thought I issued the invitation. She seems to have made an impression on old Dick, Granny? I thought he was immune to girls. What is it?"