“My, but it’s good to see you!” he declared. “We’ve missed you so much.”
“And I’ve missed you, but I’ve had a grand time,” replied Janet, locking her arms in theirs.
The Thornes came up and there were greetings all around. Then Henry Thorne and Janet’s father supervised the loading of the luggage into the Hardy sedan.
The car was crowded, but they had so much to talk about and were so eager to say it that the inconvenience of short space mattered little.
Taking turns, Janet and Helen, rather breathlessly, told the story of their summer in Hollywood while John Hardy whirled them smoothly and safely along the ribbon of concrete that led from Rubio to Clarion.
They stopped at the Thorne home and unloaded most of the luggage there.
“You’re coming over to dinner,” Mrs. Hardy told them. “Is six-thirty all right?”
“We’ll be there,” promised Mrs. Thorne, who was anxious for all of the news of her friends in Clarion.
When they were home, Janet and her father and mother sat down in the comfortable living room and she told them more in detail of her adventures in the west, of the making of the western films and of their narrow escape from death in the fire.
“We were greatly worried by the radio report,” said her father, “but the call from the Thornes reassured us.”