“Remember,” laughed her hostess, “I told you our sports were to be a huge joke. You must have a sense of humor, or you won’t want to take part. You know we have horse show grounds here in Lenox. Well, the Gymkana race this year will take place over their meadow. Indeed, all the sports are to be held there. Father, you explain what the games are like,” Dorothy requested.
The Ambassador looked very grave.
“Miss Stuart,” he asked, “will you or your friends drive a turkey, a duck, a hen, or a gander in our Gymkana race? My daughter, Dorothy, has, I believe, reserved an old gray goose as her especial steed; but you can make any other choice of racer that you may desire. The only point of the game is to get the nose of your steed first under the blue ribbon. It may take a good deal of racing and chasing on your own part to accomplish it.”
Dorothy inquired, turning first to Ruth, then to Bab, Mollie and Grace, “May I put down your names for this race?”
Ruth laughed. “Certainly I shall enter,” she declared. “I have as good a nerve as anyone else. You must give me time to decide on what animal I shall drive.”
“I’ll join, too!” Grace agreed. “Is this game for women only?”
“Yes,” Dorothy replied. “Other distinguished sports are reserved for the men. What do you think of my serious-minded father? He is down for the ‘egg and spoon’ race. So are Franz Heller and Mr. Winthrop Latham. I mean to ask your two men friends, Mr. Post and Mr. Ewing, to enter, too. It’s great sport. The men have to run across the track carrying a raw egg in a desert spoon. The man who first gets to the winning post without a mishap is the winner. But there will be other games as well. I am just mentioning a few of them.”
Gwendolin Morton approached with Franz Heller and the tall blond girl whom “The Automobile Girls” had seen for a moment at the postoffice.
“We have to come to believe in the American fashion of introducing our friends,” declared Miss Morton. “You know, in England it is not the custom to introduce people to one another at a tea party. May I present my friend, Maud Warren, to you, Miss Stuart, Miss Carter, and the Misses Thurston.”
The four girls bowed. Maud Warren inclined her head slightly, giving each girl in turn a supercilious stare.