“Won’t you call Ruth down first?” urged Gladys. “I feel too much ashamed to go right on up there among all of you.”
Ruth and Bab, between them, persuaded Gladys to go to their rooms. To their surprise, Mistress Mollie was the one to be appeased. She was not so ready to kiss and make up as Bab had been, yet even Mollie’s “hard” little heart softened when she saw what a changed and chastened Gladys the girls brought upstairs with them.
“You’ll see I am going to be different,” Gladys said to Bab, “and if ever there’s a chance for me to prove how I appreciate your being so kind to me now, I shall do it. Of course, I don’t expect you to have much faith in me yet.”
“Miss Barbara Thurston is requested to spend her last day in Newport as the guest of honor of Governor and Mrs. Post on board their yacht, the ‘Penguin,’ which is at this instant awaiting her answer outside in Narragansett Bay,” said Ruth, with a flourish of a letter she held in her hand and a low bow to Barbara.
“Goose!” shot Barbara at Ruth. “But are we all invited for a sail? How jolly!”
“I am no goose, madam,” retorted Ruth. “I mean what I say. Read this.”
She handed Barbara a letter which Miss Stuart had received from Mrs. Post only a few minutes before, and which read:
My Dear Miss Stuart,
We want, in some quiet fashion, to show our appreciation of, and thanks to, the little girl who so patiently and cleverly kept her own counsel, and so materially aided in the discovery of the jewel thief. I feel that I did not do her justice. Governor Post and I both believe that it is to her wit and courage that I owe the return of my emerald necklace. I have talked matters over with Hugh, and, with your consent, I should like to give a luncheon, in her honor, on board the yacht at one o’clock to-morrow. We will spend the afternoon sailing in the bay. Only our intimate friends will be invited and we feel that no party could be complete, at Newport, without the presence of “The Automobile Girls.”
Faithfully yours,