“Well, have your way about it,” answered Jack, good-naturedly. “There are other nights coming.”
“Yes, let’s go home,” added Belle, and Bess tried to hide a sleepy yawn, for they had traveled about considerable that day, and she was tired.
So Paul and Hazel said good-night, and the others, entering the autos, turned into the ocean boulevard and started toward Clover Cottage.
“We’ll drive up, and put the machines away later,” suggested Jack, when they were near their home quarters. “We really have been quite a long time away.”
They found Mrs. Robinson and Miss Steel waiting on the porch.
“Why, mamma has not retired yet,” exclaimed Bess. “I wonder at her sitting out of doors in the damp.”
But the reason of this was soon made plain. Mrs. Robinson was too frightened to go indoors!
“Oh, we have had such a dreadful time,” she sobbed. “I cannot see how you could have gone and left us in this lonely place all this while.”
Bess instantly had her arms around the trembling little woman. Mrs. Robinson had always been “babied” by the girls, and that she was very nervous her whole family knew too well.
“Mother dear,” began Bess, “we did not think it too late. You said we might stay until—after nine——”