CHAPTERPAGE
I.Barbara to the Rescue[7]
II.Lost, Strayed or Stolen[16]
III.Ruth’s Perfect Plan[30]
IV.Mother’s Secret[39]
V.The Glorious Start[47]
VI.What Happened the First Day[59]
VII.Showing Their Mettle[71]
VIII.“For We Are Jolly Good Fellows!”[86]
IX.Only Girls[93]
X.Enter Gladys and Mr. Townsend[104]
XI.Newport at Last[111]
XII.A Week Later[121]
XIII.The Night of the Ball[131]
XIV.Barbara’s Secret[142]
XV.Ruth in Danger[150]
XVI.Help Arrives[162]
XVII.The Fortune-Tellers[169]
XVIII.A Word to the Wise[180]
XIX.“Eyeology”[190]
XX.Ruth Wakes Up![204]
XXI.The Capture of the Butterfly[213]
XXII.The Tennis Tournament[224]
XXIII.Brought to Bay[236]
XXIV.Good-Bye to Newport[242]

THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT

CHAPTER I—BARBARA TO THE RESCUE

“Pink hair ribbons!”

Barbara Thurston’s brown, bright face seemed to twinkle all over, as she clinked a yellow coin on the marble top of the little sewing table.

“Silk stockings!” chorused Mollie Thurston gleefully. “Wasn’t it the luckiest thing that the hotel people wanted so many berries this year!” And she, too, sent a gold piece spinning over the smooth surface. “But, perhaps, we won’t be invited after all,” she sighed.

“Nonsense!” rejoined Barbara energetically. “When Grace Carter says she’ll fix a thing, you can wager she will. She’s known Ruth Stuart for three summers now, and she’s told us we’d be invited to Ruth’s party this year. I can read the invitations already. The only thing worrying me was what we’d wear. Now the strawberry crop has turned out so well, and mother’s a brick, and will let us use our money as we wish—I think we’re fixed. Then—who knows?”

“I am sure Ruth Stuart’s lots of fun when you get to know her,” interrupted Mollie eagerly. “If Cousin Gladys wasn’t boarding at the hotel with her, we’d have met her long before. Isn’t Gladys a stuck-up goose? Never mind. We’ll have the laugh on her when she sees us at the party. Let’s be de-lighted to meet her. I should love to watch her when she is fussed!”

“After all,” mused Barbara, thoughtfully, “her father was in partnership with papa. It’s mighty funny that uncle got all the money. I wonder——” She stopped playing with her gold piece and gazed thoughtfully out of the sitting room window at the hot, empty, yellow road that ran so near the tiny cottage.

Barbara Thurston was sixteen, Mollie just two years younger, and nearly all their lives had been spent in that little cottage. John Thurston, the girls’ father, had died suddenly when Mollie was only three years old.