“How many are in your party, Miss Campbell?” asked Maggie, in the act of breaking eggs into a bowl.
“There are eight of us, but I hope you aren’t thinking——”
“Oh, but I am,” insisted Maggie. “I am sure they will be very tired and hungry, and, besides, we have plenty in the larder for everyone,—a whole ham!” she added archly.
“Dear me, I wish Billie were here,” said Miss Campbell. “I believe she always keeps things stored away in the ‘Comet’ for an emergency.”
“I’ll beat up some Johnnie cakes,” announced Amy. “We can cook those on the wood fire later.”
In the meantime, the waiters who had waited in vain and the wanderers who had wandered fruitlessly, began to realize that the situation was serious. Billie grew desperately impatient. At last she succeeded in engaging a carry-all and two horses from a man at the moat house and soon she and Nancy, seated face to face, were hurrying along the road. Dr. Hume had met Percy. Ben had discovered Elinor and Mary standing fearfully on the edge of the forest. By the time that Richard Hook had got anywhere at all with his old nag, the lake-party, with the exception of Miss Campbell, was re-united in Billie’s carry-all and driving comfortably in the direction of the “Comet.”
They were very tired and hungry but a graven image would have melted to laughter over this comedy of errors, and Richard Hook, hearing the gay chorus of voices approaching, was quite sure it was another picnic party. But he was not a young man to take chances, and having taken his position across the middle of the road, he waved his arms and yelled, “Stop!”
“Do you know anything about a little lady in gray and an abandoned automobile?” he asked.
“Cousin Helen and the ‘Comet,’” cried Billie, consumed with anxiety. “Oh, Ben, how could you have left them?”
“But——” began Ben.