“What, Cousin Helen,” cried Billie, frightened at the expressions of doubt and agitation which chased themselves across her relative’s face.
“My purse, child! My silver-mounted Morocco purse. I thought I had it in my reticule, but where is it?”
They emptied the reticule. They looked in their own handbags and even went to the garage and searched the Comet. But Miss Campbell’s purse containing fifty dollars was gone.
“At any rate, Billie,” whispered Nancy that night when they had stretched themselves wearily on the hardish bed in the hotel, “at any rate, he had the nicest, kindest brown eyes I ever saw.”
“Even now,” answered Billie, “there may be some mistake.”
CHAPTER III.—IN SEARCH OF A DINNER.
“This is assuredly a land of peace and plenty,” observed Miss Campbell, somewhat sleepily, as she leaned back in the seat and half closed her eyes.
“Meaning ‘too much of a muchness,’ Cousin Helen,” teased Billie. “Are you beginning to yearn already for something to happen?”
“My dear, how can you suggest such things?” cried her relative opening her blue eyes wide in an innocent protest of such an accusation. “An aged spinster like me craving excitement! What an idea!”
“But Iowa is not thrilling,” admitted Elinor. “These endless cornfields are like a sea without ship and what could be duller than a sail-less ocean?”