"So long, then. I'm off, girls."
Jane sprang into her car and drove away with a sputter and a roar, disappearing in a cloud of pungent blue smoke.
"Isn't she a crazy creature?" demanded Margery disdainfully.
"She means well," soothed Hazel.
"Yeth. Thhe meanth to kill thomebody well," corrected Tommy.
Jane McCarthy had acquired the name of "Crazy Jane" because of her reckless driving, her harum-scarum ways and her complete ignoring of public opinion. Not a few of the residents of the little New Hampshire village feared that Jane might be brought home after one of her wild drives, with broken bones, if not worse.
In spite of her reckless manner Jane was well liked. She was good hearted and very charitable, though her charity was not always bestowed with judgment Being motherless she had practically done as she pleased ever since she began to walk, and her father, a wealthy contractor, had indulged her every whim, believing that Jane could do no wrong. Jane was prompt to take advantage of this paternal leniency, though her worst offense was that of continuously terrorizing the neighborhood in which she lived and the whole countryside as well, by her reckless driving with both car and horse.
The narrow escape of Grace Thompson from being run over by the big touring car had not shaken Jane's nerve in the least. It had shaken Tommy's only briefly. Tommy, supple and alert, had leaped from the road just in time to avoid being run down by the car. A second's delay on her part would undoubtedly have proved serious if not fatal to Tommy Thompson.
But the three girls were to see more of Jane in the near future. She was to play a more active part in their lives than she had ever before done. Just now they were more interested in what they instinctively felt Miss Elting had to say to them.
"Now, listen, girls," said Miss Elting after the roar of the car had died away in the distance. "I will tell you about the very pleasant plans I have made for you and Harriet."