Six weeks before, on their return from the trip to Newport, “The Automobile Girls” had disbanded. Mr. Stuart had given a dinner in their honor, and at the close of the meal, he formally presented each of the girls with a miniature model of Ruth’s motor car, forming pins of red enamel about the size of a dime.
“You must wear them forever,” Ruth insisted, almost in tears. “Who knows what luck they may bring to us? Remember this isn’t a real breaking up of ‘The Automobile Girls’; it is only an ‘auf wiedersehen.’”
The morning after Mr. Stuart’s dinner, Grace left Kingsbridge to visit her brother. Later, Mr. Stuart and his sister, Miss Stuart, bore Ruth away to spend several weeks with some relatives in northern New York.
Ruth confided to Bab her grief at leaving them.
“I perfectly hate to go,” she protested. “Just think, Bab, how soon I shall have to go back to Chicago, and leave you here in New Jersey. Other people are well enough in their places, but they are not my Barbara, Mollie and Grace!”
It was after this confidence, that Bab made Ruth solemnly promise to pay them a visit before she returned home.
Barbara opened her eyes suddenly. Had she been asleep and dreamed of Ruth? She could almost hear her voice and laugh. Some one was coming along the path. She could hear the dead leaves crunch under flying feet.
“Barbara, my Barbara!” Was it Mollie’s voice calling her?
“Here I am,” cried Bab faintly.
Through the trees running straight toward her, her eyes shining, her cheeks aglow, was Ruth Stuart. Barbara tried to leap up.