The presence of the big dog made them all feel safer when the time to retire came, although the Shepards were used to camping out, and had never yet been molested in their two years’ experience.
The two parties gave each other full personal particulars. The brother and sister had friends in Milton, whom the Corner House girls knew. And then, there was another bond between Luke and Cecile Shepard and the four Corner House girls. They were all orphans.
Luke was in his sophomore year at college. Cecile was attending a preparatory school, and was going to have a college education, too. But they had partly to work for it, for their only relative was a maiden aunt who could help them but little, and there had been only money enough left by their mother to partly educate the brother and sister.
“And we get a nice vacation and lots of fun and some money by going out with our van for three months each year,” Cecile explained. “The rest of the year we rent the horses and van and the route to a man who has a little restaurant business at the shore in the summer. So we do pretty well.”
Tom Jonah, as watchman, made no sound all night long. The weather gradually cleared, and at daybreak there was every promise of a beautiful day, with everything washed clean by the rain.
The motoring party decided to make an early start—and without breakfast. The Shepards knew just where there was a good roadside hotel only twenty miles away, and Neale was sure they would get there in season for breakfast.
Their host and hostess, however, insisted upon their having coffee before they started, and when the automobile got under way, the Corner House girls and their party felt, as they had the morning previous, that they were leaving some very good friends behind. They hoped to meet Luke and Cecile again on their return trip; if not, Cecile was to write to Ruth. The “tin peddlers” had also promised to make the old Corner House, in Milton, a visit during the next winter.
“Dear me suz!” sighed Agnes, as they wheeled away, using one of Mrs. MacCall’s exclamations, “isn’t this just delightful? I think touring the country in this way, and meeting folks, and making friends, is just delightful.”
“Not so delightful last night when that storm was beating down upon us,” Mrs. Heard reminded her.
“And you did your share of the kicking then, all right all right,” put in Neale O’Neil. “Oh, you did squall, Aggie.”