The young driver waved a free hand for a second, as she neared them, then wheeled in a broad turn and stopped. “I was so afraid you might have started,” she protested tactfully, “for it is such a fine morning for a nice leisurely walk. I was so anxious to see you that I simply couldn’t wait, and I told Dad I’d take the ‘bubble’ and spin out to meet you. Now, won’t you please hop in, and ride back with me?”
The girls “hopped” with delighted celerity, and Ruth turned back to them for a moment. “I have reams to talk about,” she continued, “but, to tell you the truth, I want my father to be with us, when I begin. So, now, if you don’t mind, we’ll just ride.”
Neither Mollie nor Barbara will ever forget their first ride. “I felt as if I had chartered my own private flying machine, and I was sure the angels were jealous,” Mollie confessed, naïvely, at lunch.
They reached the hotel very quickly, and after a cosy chat on the private balcony belonging to Ruth’s tiny suite of rooms, found themselves seated around a little table in a cool, palm-shaded corner of the big dining-room. Between them, opposite Ruth, sat big, blue-eyed, open-hearted, Robert Stuart, Ruth’s “Dad.”
Robert Stuart had made his fortune out West, in the mining country. That was how he started, anyway. For years, now, he had lived in Chicago, buying and selling real estate in the vicinity. There his wife had died, and there his eighteen-year-old daughter Ruth had spent nearly all her life. During the summers she had traveled more or less, and the last few years had frequently gone East. Her father’s sister, Aunt Sallie Stuart, had brought the girl up since her mother’s death, which had occurred when Ruth was a little girl. Aunt Sallie was not present at the luncheon, because of a bad headache. “Grace Carter has come over and is staying with her, like a dear,” Ruth explained. Later, if Auntie felt better, the girls were to go up to her room.
Ruth, as has appeared, was an extremely impulsive young person. Fortunately, most of her impulses were inspired by a natural kindliness, and a cheerful, youthful energy, with a stratum of good common sense at bottom. There was apt to be method in her madness. Her “plan,” for instance, had long been her desire, but before she had never seen the way.
Ruth couldn’t wait for the cold boullion to be taken off. “Father, I want to tell them now!” she exclaimed. After his cheerful, “Go ahead, daughter,” she burst out: “Barbara, Mollie, won’t you go on an automobile tour to Newport with Grace Carter and me, with Aunt Sallie for chaperon? Won’t you, can’t you come?”
While the amazed girls could only look at her and at each other, she hurried on: “Oh, yes, you probably think I’m crazy. But I’m not. You see it’s like this: all my life I have longed to travel by myself; at least, with the people I want, not in a train, or a big crowded boat. Dad knows the feeling; it’s what makes him run away from Chicago, and get out on the prairies and ride and ride and ride! I’m a girl, so I can’t do that or lots of things. But I can run an automobile. For two years I have just been waiting to get the right crowd. Grace is a dear, but I wanted two more. The other girls I know are all right to meet at dances and to see now and then; but they’d collapse at the thought of starting off on a lark like this. You two—you’re different, I knew it the minute I saw you. Besides,” she continued, “Grace has been telling me things about you. I always know right off whether I like anybody, and it doesn’t take long to find out how much I like them. I like both of you a whole lot—and I know we will have a perfectly delightful trip if you will go with me. If you don’t, I simply can’t go—that’s all. It would be absurd setting off in that great machine with only Grace and Aunt Sallie to rattle around like two peas in a pod. Daddie understands, and he likes you just the way I do—I can see it in his eyes. So it’s just up to you! Do you like me a little bit—well, say enough to visit me in my automobile for a month or so? Oh, please say you do!”
She stopped, her voice catching impulsively over the last words. Barbara’s eyes were shining. “I don’t believe we need to tell you that,” she said softly; “you must just know. But there’s mother. And we haven’t the money.”
“Now that’s not fair,” Ruth broke in. “The money is out of the question altogether. You are my guests. Why, it’s you who will do me the favor,” she pleaded, as she caught the look of dissent on Barbara’s face. “Remember, if you fail me, I can’t have my trip at all—and I have been looking forward to it for two whole years. As for your mother, if she will consent to it, Dad and I have a beautiful plan, to keep her and Dad both from being lonely. Poor Dad is sick and tired of hotel cooking and I told him all about your dear little cottage and the dandy tea and cookies your mother makes, and—and—do you suppose your mother would let Dad take his meals with her while we are away? Then he won’t be too wretched living all alone up here. Also, you wouldn’t have to worry about your mother, nor would I have to worry about Dad. Aunt Sallie has been with him so long that I don’t know what he’d do all by himself. He could get on very well, if only your mother would look after him at meals, I know that.