Suddenly Billie turned her face toward the road.
Throwing her hands over her head with a gesture of despair, she began to weep bitterly.
“Oh! oh!” she cried, “the Comet, my beloved Comet! He has been stolen!”
CHAPTER VII.—BARNEY M’GEE.
It was almost as much of a shock to Miss Campbell and the others to see Billie so unstrung as to find the Comet stolen.
The young girl’s feeling for her car was of a very real character, and if the Comet had been a favorite animal or a human being even, she could not have been more distressed.
“Billie, my darling, you must not give way so,” cried her cousin, putting her arms gently around Billie’s neck. “We shall find the Comet, I’m sure.”
“I never dreamed anyone would take him,” sobbed Billie. “I thought he would be quite safe in this lonely place. It was stupid of me to have left him unprotected like that all night long.”
Her friends, who had been subdued and silent in the presence of her grief could hardly refrain from smiling at the notion of Billie’s sitting up all night to protect the automobile from kidnappers. Billie, her normal, cheerful self, was the most sensible person in the world; but Billie, the prey of tears and doubts, was just as unreasonable as any other weeping, unhappy girl.
While she had her cry out on Miss Helen’s shoulder with her devoted Nancy hanging over her, Mary and Elinor began to look about them.