“It ain’t white an’ it ain’t black, neither, Missy.”
Miss Campbell herself joined in the laughter which Sam’s reply raised and they asked no more questions about Mr. Donahue’s appearance. But the magnolias were not the last token from their mysterious host, who seemed to have arranged everything with the greatest care and forethought. When the train stopped at the Palm Beach station, there was the Comet waiting for them like a faithful steed. The red motor had been shipped nearly a week before, and the sight of his cheerful face was like meeting an old friend.
“Sam, you just give Mr. Donahue my compliments,” exclaimed Billie, patting the Comet affectionately, “and tell him that next to my father he’s the nicest man I ever knew, or rather didn’t know, because I haven’t met him yet.”
Sam bowed and scraped and grinned in the familiar manner of his race as he helped the ladies into the car. A young chauffeur was at the wheel, and Billie and Nancy crowded into the front seat beside him while the others sat in the back as usual. For a long time the train had been passing through a flat country, monotonous with palm trees and undergrowth, and now they seemed to have broken into fairyland. The air was laden with the scent of flowers and the sound of music floated to them in the stillness.
“The concert in Cocoanut Grove,” explained the chauffeur to Nancy and Billie.
“Are we in heaven?” asked Mary Price, dreamily.
“It will be three weeks of heaven, I hope, my child,” answered Miss Campbell, patting the young girl’s hand.
Those of you who have read the first volume of this series will recall how Mary Price had been made the victim of a cruel conspiracy a few months before, during which only the faith of her friends and a strange combination of circumstances prevented her from being branded as a thief. The unhappiness and anxiety which she had endured during that trying time, followed by months of hard study, had sapped her strength, and Mary more than any of the Motor Maids needed this change to a southern climate.
“This is Lake Worth,” observed the chauffeur, pointing to a beautiful placid body of water, the little waves of which lapped the shores so softly that the whir of the motor engine seemed out of place in that quiet spot.
For the first time, the girls noticed the chauffeur. He seemed very young to be running a machine; although Billie did not reflect that she herself was not much past the sixteenth goal; but then she ran her own machine, and he was a public chauffeur. He was a handsome boy with black hair and blue eyes and he spoke with a soft, beautiful accent.