"It sounds all right," answered Cora slowly. "But how are you going to do it?"

"Easily," said Linda, with a confident ring in her voice. "After the janitor has fixed up the fires for the day to-morrow morning he'll not be in the basement. I'll slip down before Sherwood is due to get there and tie down the valve. That'll keep the steam confined and make the shriek that much louder when it's let loose. I'll hide behind the woodpile, and just when Sherwood is opposite the furnace, I'll cut the string and—voila."

"All very fine," remarked Cora half-heartedly. "But isn't it awfully dangerous? Have you thought what might happen if you confine the steam?"

"Of course I've thought of that, stupid," replied Linda, nettled at Cora's lack of enthusiasm. "But the steam won't be held back long enough to do any harm."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Cora, who felt very uneasy about the possible results of her friend's malicious scheme.

"Nonsense," retorted Linda. "I'll take all the risk, if there is any. But there won't be. I've planned it out too carefully to make any mistake about it. It's too good a chance to get even with Nan Sherwood to let it go by."



CHAPTER XII

ALMOST A DISASTER

"I wouldn't risk it if I were you, Linda," Cora persisted.

"Oh, what's the use of talking to you!" exclaimed Linda angrily. "You haven't got enough sense to understand. I wish I hadn't told you a word about it," and she turned her back upon her chum and refused to say another word.

Cora, daring for once to be angry in her turn, left the room, and Linda soon forgot her in gloating over the fright she was plotting for Nan.

The next morning after the eleven o'clock recitation had begun, Linda made a pretext for leaving the room. She slipped down into the basement and then came back to her seat to await developments.

Meanwhile, the well-ordered routine of Lakeview Hall was proceeding as usual. The hands of the great clock in the English recitation room pointed to a quarter of twelve, and sidelong looks were being cast at it in pleasurable anticipation of the noon hour.

Bang!

Suddenly the crash of a loud explosion filled every one with terror. The building trembled to its foundations. Clouds of steam poured up from the basement.

A wild cry rent the air.

"What's that?"

"Sounded like an explosion to me."

"Maybe it's an earthquake."

"Oh, see the smoke."

"The school must be on fire!"

"I'm going to get out of here!"

"Oh, yes, let me out; I don't want to be burnt alive!"

"Fire! Fire! The Hall is on fire!"

In an instant a panic was on. The teachers alone and some of the older girls kept their heads. The younger pupils rushed for the doors in a frenzy of fright.

The English teacher ran to one of the doors of her recitation room and held it fast. But there was another door in the room, and toward this the frightened girls poured in a mad stampede. Just outside was the stairway with several sharp turns, and if the fugitives jammed up on one of the landings it might mean maiming or death for some of them.

Quick as a flash, Nan Sherwood acted. She sprang to the danger door, slammed it shut and put her back against it. The tide surged up against her. The younger girls clawed at her, scratched her hands, did all in their power to force her away from the door. But she held her place with desperation, though her clothes were torn, and her hands were bleeding.

Then through the crowd came Linda Riggs, bowling the smaller girls out of her way, her face as pale as death and her eyes almost bulging out of her head with fright.

"Let me get out, Nan Sherwood!" she screamed, tearing at her with all her might. "Let me out! Let me out! I'll die! I won't stay here to be burned to death! Get away from that door! Let me get out!"

She tore at Nan and struck her in the face. She was a strong girl, and doubly strong now in her rage and fright. But Nan braced herself and still held the door, though her strength was fast ebbing.

Just then help came. Rhoda Hammond and Bess Harley caught hold of Linda and pulled her away. They thrust her into a seat and held her down, while Laura and others of the older girls pacified and soothed the younger ones.

The worst was over. The steam had thinned out and drifted away. The pupils slowly went back to their seats at the command of the teacher and sat there, sobbing and moaning and weak from excitement. But the panic had been quelled.

Now that the crisis had passed, Nan felt her strength leaving her, and she had scarcely enough left to get back to her seat. She almost fell into it when at last she reached it.

Just then, Dr. Prescott, who from the moment of the first alarm had been in other parts of the building, helping to quell the excitement, entered the room. She took her stand beside the teacher and held with her a brief conversation in which she learned what had occurred in the room. Then she spoke a few quiet words of assurance, telling the girls that there had not been, and was not now, any danger and warmly commending the bravery and self-control of the teacher and the older girls. She then dismissed them.

A refreshing half-hour in their rooms did the girls a world of good, and when the lunch gong sounded they gathered about the table in something like their normal spirits. It is true that none ate very much, but tongues flew fast in comment and conjecture.

"How could it have happened?" was the many-times-repeated question. Was it the janitor's fault? He must have forgotten to turn off the drafts perhaps, and the accumulated gas had exploded.

"Probably something was wrong with the safety valve," conjectured Rhoda, building better than she knew.

"Well," said Nan, as at last they rose from the table, "I hope they'll find out what did cause it so that it will never happen again."

Naturally, there were no more lessons that afternoon. The girls gathered in groups in the corridors or in each others' rooms excitedly discussing the stirring events of the morning.

Nan lay upon the couch in her room, resting after her exertions, when Grace, who had been telephoning to Walter, came in bursting with news.

"What do you think I heard downstairs!" she cried before she was fairly in the room. "Doctor Beulah thinks that it wasn't an accident at all, but that the whole thing was caused by some one tampering with the boiler."

The girls all spoke at once.

"Oh, that couldn't be!"

"Who'd have any object in doing a thing that might have cost lives?"

"Isn't it awful!"

"Anyway," Grace went on as soon as they gave her a chance to speak, "they say that a heavy cord had been tied to the valve to keep it down and the broken ends of the cord were found hanging from it."

The girls were stupefied with astonishment.

Suddenly Laura started up and walked excitedly about the room.

"There's this much about it!" she exclaimed. "If some one did do it purposely, Doctor Beulah will soon find out when it was done, and why it was done—and who did it, too," she added significantly.

Laura knew by the expression on all the faces that the same thought that had been in her mind when she spoke those last words was in the minds of the other girls, too.

If two very depressed and frightened girls in another room could have heard them, their spirits would have sunk still lower.

"What did I tell you!" cried Cora wildly. "I begged you not to do it. And what did you make by it? Disgraced yourself and only made Nan Sherwood more popular than ever."

For once, Linda was silent. Cora made the most of her chance to get back at Linda for her high-handed treatment of her. She went on mercilessly:

"I was so ashamed of you," she said. "You made such a show of yourself. I didn't think you could be such a coward."

"Well," whined Linda, "I had more to live for, with all my money, than they had."

"That sounds like you," gibed Cora disgustedly. "Well, I pity you if Doctor Beulah finds out you did it. And she will, you can just depend on that."

In the meantime Bess, with some other girls, visited the basement to look at the wreckage. When she came back she had a queer look on her face. She called Nan to one side.

"See what I found," she said and held out a small handkerchief with a daisy worked in one corner. "It was in the basement, close to the wrecked boiler."

Nan looked at the bit of linen and started. She remembered having seen Linda Riggs with such a handkerchief more than once.

"But Linda may have dropped it down there since the explosion," she said, quickly.

"I guess not!" drawled Bess. "This looks like a bit of real evidence to me."

"Oh, Bess—don't say anything—at least not till you are sure."

"I won't. But I'll remember it."

At this moment the gong sounded a summons to the main assembly hall, a summons which the girls obeyed with alacrity.

Knowing as they did that an examination of the steam plant had been going on, and their interest and curiosity quickened by the rumors they had heard, it was not long before every seat was filled and all eyes turned expectantly on Dr. Prescott. She sat there, rather pale, but dignified and well poised.

"What is she going to say?" each girl asked herself. The tension was at its height, the silence could almost be felt, when Dr. Prescott began to speak.

"A thorough examination has shown us," she began, "that the steam plant is very badly damaged, though we hope that it may be possible to repair it in a short time. But the investigation," she went on, "has revealed the almost unbelievable fact that there was no accident, but a deliberate plan or trick. Who conceived it or why, is not yet known, but we will spare no effort to find the guilty party and bring him or her to punishment. I am very thankful that the injury was confined to the steam plant and that no one was hurt, as might easily have been the case.

"I am very proud of the presence of mind and bravery shown by the teachers and many of the students. Many of the younger girls and all the older ones, with one shameful exception"—she paused, and all eyes were turned on Linda, who sat cowering in her seat—"showed remarkable self-possession, and I take this opportunity to thank them all. I hesitate to mention any names, but I must single out Nan Sherwood, who, by her prompt action and cool courage, contributed in so large a measure to avert the dreadful consequences of a panic."

With these words she dismissed them.

As the girls left the assembly hall they broke out into a Babel of excited comment. Dr. Prescott, crossing the hall on the way to her office, placed her arm over Nan's shoulders and thanked her personally. Nan's heart swelled at the earnest words of praise, for Dr. Prescott's good opinion was highly valued.

"Of course," the doctor added with a whimsical smile, "the three-day sentence is remitted for you and your friends."

She passed on.

"Isn't she just splendid!" exclaimed Grace.

"And how nicely she seemed to manage the whole situation," remarked Rhoda.

"She's a peach!" declared Laura, slangily.

"I should say she is! And so is somebody else I know," agreed Bess, as she drew Nan's arm through hers.



CHAPTER XIII

THE WILY STRANGER

"What is this anyway?" asked Bess. "Greenland or the North Pole?"

"Well, it's Siberia at the very least," laughed Nan, as, wrapped in outdoor coats and furs, the girls entered the recitation room the second morning after the explosion.

School without heat in weather that came close to the zero mark was not very enticing, and it was glad news to all the girls when it was announced that, owing to the injury to the steam plant, which was greater than was at first thought, the school term would end nearly a week ahead of time pending extensive repairs. Those who were going home were directed to begin to pack at once, and those who were not would be provided with quarters in the village.

After hearing this announcement the girls flew upstairs on winged feet.

"An extra week at home! What happiness!" exclaimed Bess, whirling Nan around until they both dropped breathless on the window seat.

"And think of Grace with another week at Palm Beach to look forward to!" cried Nan.

"What luck for her!" said Bess enviously, as she began taking her things from the dresser drawer.

Soon the last trunk was locked and strapped and they were ready to depart.

"Let's run to town for a last visit to Mrs. Bragley," proposed Nan.

Bess gladly acquiesced, and the two girls were off. They were delighted to find Mrs. Bragley sitting up and able to get around a little with a cane. She greeted them gratefully and was profuse in her thanks for all the care they had shown her. And she was intensely interested in their story of the explosion at the school.

"And now," said Nan, after they had chatted for a while, "how about those papers? We are going home sooner than we thought, and if you will give them to me I will show them to Grace Mason's father. He is a very able lawyer and will get to the bottom of this orange grove if any one can."

"That will be fine," was the gratified reply. "The papers are right here. I have been looking them over. Take them if you wish, dear."

Mrs. Bragley took them from the table and handed them to Nan, and the latter tucked them safely away in her bag.

"I may be carrying a fortune away in this bag," she said jokingly, as she snapped the catch and rose to go.

"I'm afraid they're not worth the paper they're printed on," said the woman dubiously.

"Hope on, hope ever," quoted Bess gaily, as, with a last wave of the hand, she followed Nan out of the door.

They were almost to the school when Bess suddenly asked:

"Do you know that man, Nan? He looks as though he were going to speak to us."

Nan looked up just as a tall thin man approached them. He lifted his hat and said:

"I beg pardon, young ladies, but could you inform me where the Widow Bragley lives?"

Nan pointed out the cottage and the man thanked her and passed on.

"What a peculiar way he had of talking," said Bess, as they resumed their walk.

"I noticed that he talked like a Southerner," replied Nan. "I wonder what business he can have with Mrs. Bragley."

"Hard to tell," said Bess. "I only hope it isn't a bill collector to bother the poor thing." And then the schoolgirls passed on their way.

The stranger soon reached the cottage of Mrs. Bragley. He scanned it carefully and noted its poverty. A contented smile stole over his face as he said to himself:

"I imagine there won't be any trouble in getting what I came for. A little money here will go a long way."

He knocked on the door and Mrs. Ellis opened it.

"Does Mrs. Sarah Bragley live here?" the stranger inquired with an ingratiating smile, which, however, sat rather badly on his somewhat sinister countenance.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Ellis. "But she's not very well and has gone to lie down. Is it anything I can do for you?"

"No, thank you," replied the stranger. "My errand with her is a personal one. I've come all the way from the South to see her on a matter of private business."

"If that's the case, I think she'll see you," replied the nurse, ushering him in and giving him a seat.

She excused herself and went into the bedroom, and in a few minutes Mrs. Bragley appeared, a little curious and considerably flustered by the announcement of a visitor from such a distance.

"My name is Thompson," the visitor said, as he rose and bowed. "I came from Florida to see you on a business matter. I'm sorry to learn that you are not well, and I'd put the matter off, only that I have arrangements made to get back home as soon as possible."

"From Florida?" repeated the old woman. "It can't be that you've come to see me about that orange grove property there that my husband put all our money into before he died?"

"If you refer to the property at Sunny Slopes," returned the visitor, "you are right. It is just that that I came to see you about."

"Laws me!" ejaculated the widow in some excitement. "And here it was only a little while ago I was saying that I never expected to hear from it. I wrote and wrote and never heard a word from it. I began to think," she went on a little apologetically, "that there might be some fraud or something of that kind about it."

"Oh, nothing like that," the visitor said impressively. "Mr. Pacomb is the soul of honor. I have never known him to do anything that wasn't straight and aboveboard."

"I'm very glad to hear that," said the simple-hearted old woman. "He wrote such beautiful letters to us when he was asking us to put our money into the property that I thought he must be a nice man. I'm very sorry that I ever had an unkind thought about him. I'm so glad to know that things are all right. I need the money so badly. And my poor husband always thought there would be a whole lot of money come from it."

The stranger looked a little embarrassed.

"Quite right, quite right," he said. "There ought to have been a big profit from it. Everybody thought so, and nobody felt more sure of it than Mr. Pacomb himself. He thought so well of it that he put every cent of his own money into it."

"Then he's made a fortune in it, too!" exclaimed the old woman, beaming on her visitor.

The stranger coughed.

"No," he said, "that's the unfortunate thing about it. You see, Mrs. Bragley, the thing didn't turn out as we had hoped and expected. The land was right in the orange belt, and we had every reason to believe that it would yield big results. But for some reason or other it didn't. The ground couldn't have been adapted to it. You never can tell about orange groves."

The poor woman's face fell.

"Then," she said quaveringly, "all my money is gone!"

"Oh, no, not all," the stranger hastened to say. "There is still a little money for you, if you want to sell what interest you have in the property. Of course the property has proved practically worthless. But the man who has a country estate bordering on the property is willing to pay the company a small sum just to round out his estate, and your interest in it we calculate would be about two hundred dollars. In fact," he went on with a burst of generosity, and at the same time taking a roll of bills from his pocket, "Mr. Pacomb would be willing to give you two hundred dollars to settle the matter up at once."

He began to count out the bills, as if the matter had been agreed upon. It was a long time since Mrs. Bragley had seen so much money, and in her straitened circumstances two hundred dollars seemed like a fortune. The visitor had counted on the influence exerted by the sight of the money, and he was not disappointed.

"Well," said Mrs. Bragley, "I suppose it's the best thing I can do, since you say that the land isn't any good for oranges."

"We'll consider it settled then," the man observed, trying to conceal his satisfaction. "Now if you'll get me the papers I'll hand you the money."

A look of dismay came into the woman's face.

"The—the papers!" she stammered. "Why, I haven't got them!"

"You haven't got them?" the man snapped in wonder. "Where are they then?"

"I gave them to a young lady not more than an hour ago," replied Mrs. Bragley. "She had just gone a little before you came."

"Why did you give them to her?" the man asked.

"Some friends of hers are going to Florida and they were going to look up the matter," replied the old lady. "It seems that the father of one of the girls is a lawyer and——"

"A lawyer!" interrupted the man, a look of fear coming into his face. Then by a great effort he regained his self-control.

"Well, Mrs. Bragley," he said, "it's for you to do what you choose in this matter. It's too bad for you to lose this two hundred dollars when you might just as well have it as not. Suppose I see this young lady and tell her that you want the papers back."

"I wish you would," replied the old lady. Then she gave the man Nan's name and told him where she thought he could find her. He scribbled the name and address in a notebook, and a little later hurried away.

"If I don't find that Nan Sherwood and get the papers away from her my name isn't Jacob Pacomb," he muttered to himself.

With all speed he hurried to the Hall, only to learn that Nan had left for the depot. Then he rushed to the station.

"Sorry, but the train left quarter of an hour ago," declared the station master in reply to his question. "There won't be another train for three hours."

On gaining this information the face of Jacob Pacomb became a study. Savagely he bit off the end of a cigar, lit it, and began to puff away furiously.

"That young woman from the school may be a sharp one," he murmured as he strode up and down the little depot platform. "I'll have to use either force or diplomacy in getting those papers from her. I mustn't let her think they are valuable. I wonder what I can do next? It's too bad I promised to go to Chicago to attend that sale. But I can't afford to miss that." He mused for a moment. "Wonder if I couldn't get Davis and Jensen to do this job for me? They are hanging around doing nothing and would do almost anything for the price of a meal. Yes, I'll see Davis and Jensen and set them on the girl's track."

In the meantime Nan and Bess were being whirled at the rate of fifty miles an hour toward the home where love and open arms awaited them.

Their parents had, of course, been apprised of their coming, and the welcome was the royal one that always greeted them after their long absences from home. Nothing was too good for them.

Several days passed quickly, and then came great news. The first item was a notification from Dr. Prescott that since the steam plant had required far more extensive repairs than at first had seemed necessary, the reopening would be deferred for several weeks beyond the usual time. And following this closely came a letter to each of the girls from Grace Mason. They must go with her to Palm Beach. The "must" was underscored. She would take no denial. They would have such a perfectly gorgeous time if they could only come along. Please, please, please! They simply must, and that was all there was about it.

Nan and Bess were filled with delight and excitement. But they had to reckon with their parents, who were reluctant to spare their girls after having them with them for so short a time. But the girls coaxed and wheedled, as girls will, and the parents finally yielded, as parents will. In the next few days the matter was settled and hurried preparations were begun.

More than once they had to pinch themselves to make sure they were not dreaming. Palm Beach! Land of summer, land of flowers, land of beauty! And they—Nan Sherwood and Bess Harley—were actually going to dwell for a time in that earthly Paradise!



CHAPTER XIV

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Nan was really going to Palm Beach! She could scarcely realize her good fortune.

Grace had written that some cousins who were to go had disappointed them, so good accommodations were assured to Nan and Bess when they reached Palm Beach.

Nan was up in her bedroom in the evening looking dreamily out of the window and imagining she was already at the famous winter resort when she gave a start.

Two men were slinking around, behind some trees on the opposite side of the street! From time to time they gazed at the house as if looking for somebody.

"The same men! What can it mean?"

Nan breathed the words to herself. She had seen these men before since coming home from school. They had leered at her when on an errand to the drugstore, and one of them had acted as if he wanted to speak to her while she was at the depot asking for a timetable. But a man friend had come up to greet her and the stranger had slunk away.

Nan's first impulse was to call her father and mother. But then she hesitated. Why worry her parents, and especially her mother, when, after all, it might mean little or nothing?

She looked again. Some men had come up the street. At sight of them the two slinking ones shrank back and presently hurried away.

"I hope I never see them again," said the girl to herself. But this wish was not to be gratified.

Yet the next day Nan gave the strange men hardly a thought. There were so many things to be done in preparation for the great trip.

"It's not like going out to Rose Ranch, where any old thing was good enough to wear," Nan confided to Bess. "We've got to look our best, on Grace's account as well as our own."

"And Walter's," added Bess, and then Nan promptly threw a book at her chum.

A day more, and then came the all-important time for departure.

"Oh, just to think of it! We are really and truly going!"

Nan was seated on an overturned suitcase on the porch of the little "dwelling in amity." Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her to keep her from jumping up and running off madly somewhere, anywhere—just to relieve her tremendous excitement.

Never in her life had it seemed so hard to keep still. Her trunk had gone to the station, her bag was packed, and everything was ready to catch the ten-o'clock train for New York. From there she and Bess were to take the boat, which was to carry them swiftly down the coast to Jacksonville, the gateway to Florida.

Everything was in readiness that is save Momsey. All that separated her from that desirable state was one small and pretty fur hat which Momsey was just now fitting on in front of the mirror in the little sitting-room.

But it did take a long time just to put on one hat, thought Nan with a sigh. Momsey never used to be so slow. Then, unable to bear it a moment longer, she jumped to her feet and peeped in at the door of the little "dwelling in amity."

What she saw made her pause, a smothered exclamation on her lips, her eyes dancing. For Papa Sherwood was there with Momsey and he was looking at her with as much admiration in his eyes as though they had been married only one year, instead of—oh, Nan couldn't remember how many!

"That trip overseas was just what you needed to make a girl of you again, Momsey," Papa Sherwood was saying in a tone that matched his look. "You might be our Nan's older sister. And isn't that a new hat?"

Momsey had started to make him a demure curtsey when Nan's clear laugh interrupted the tete-a-tete.

"Excuse me," she said, her eyes dancing. "Far be it from me to be in the way of anything—and, Momsey, you do look wonderful in that hat—but you know that train won't wait all day. Oh, Momsey! Papa Sherwood!"—she waltzed in upon them and hugged them gaily—"isn't it perfectly, wonderfully gorgeous?"

"What now, honey?" asked Momsey, as she rearranged the pretty hat which Nan had pushed down unbecomingly over one eye.

"What now?" repeated Nan breathlessly. "What now? Why, Florida—Jacksonville—Palm Beach! No, don't look at me as though I had gone crazy. I'm only raving. Come on, come on, you slow pokes." She half pushed her laughing parents toward the door. "You can carry the suitcase, Papa Sherwood, and I'll carry the hat box. There's only one other bundle, and I'll take that one and Momsey can bring up the rear with the lunch. I wonder what Bess will say when she sees the lunch," she chuckled, as her father carefully locked the door of the little house and put the key in his pocket.

"Well, I think I know what she will say when she tastes it," said her father as all three started down the street toward the more pretentious house where Bess lived. "For Momsey put up the lunch with her own hands—and I saw what went into it."

"Yes, and you might tell her, honey," added Mrs. Sherwood, with a soft laugh, "what hard work I had to keep you from eating all the nuts from the brown bread sandwiches."

"Oh, Momsey, don't," sighed Nan. "You will make me hungry again, and I have just had breakfast. See! There's Bess. Goodness, doesn't she look pretty?"

Both Momsey and Papa Sherwood had to admit that Bess was very pretty indeed in the bright winter sunlight, but each privately thought that their Nan, with her sparkling brown eyes and flushed cheeks, was, in her own way, even prettier than Bess.

"Hello, you folks!" called Bess as she reached them, out of breath from exercise and excitement. "I thought you were never coming. Goodness! what are you carrying two grips for? One is enough for me." Then, without waiting for a reply, she raced on to another question. "And that box! What's in it, Nan?" She gazed suspiciously at Nan's mischievous face. "It looks like a lunch box. It never is!"

"Yes, it ever is," mimicked Nan, in exactly Bess's tone, adding with a laugh: "And Papa Sherwood very nearly ate all the nuts from the sandwiches."

"Nan——" began Mrs. Sherwood reproachfully; but at that moment Mrs. Harley appeared in the doorway and the reproaches were forgotten.

Momsey would not go inside, as the minutes to train time were getting very few, so after a short disappearance Mrs. Harley joined them and they started toward the station together. The two girls, Nan and Bess, lead the way, swinging their bags and talking excitedly.

"I'm almost scared to death," confided Bess, as they turned the corner that led down to the station and the train that was to bear them so soon on their wonderful journey.

"Scared?" asked Nan, her eyes big with wonder. "What are you scared about?"

"Oh, I don't suppose I should call it exactly scared," retracted Bess. "Just sort of excited and—and—nervous. Going all alone you know—and everything."

"This isn't the first time we have traveled alone," said Nan practically. "And we have always come out 'right side up with care.'"

"Oh, Nan, you are so calm," sighed Bess in exasperation. "Won't anything ever get you excited?"

"Excited," repeated Nan, gazing in amazement at her chum. "I'm so excited this very minute that I'm all thrilly inside."

"If you are," said Bess, eyeing her judicially, "nobody would ever know it. That's just the trouble with you," she added plaintively, "you are always hiding things and having secrets from me when you know very well that no one ought ever to have a secret from her chum."

Nan put an arm about the waist of the girl and laughed.

"You can't quarrel with me, especially this morning, Bess," she said, adding soothingly: "Besides, I haven't had a secret from you in—oh, ever so long. Not since Beautiful Beulah."

For Bess had been very much put out indeed about Nan's secret possession of Beautiful Beulah, the big doll that had formerly helped Nan over many difficulties.

"I know," said Bess, in answer to Nan's declaration. "But that is just the reason why I expect you to start something. You have been 'too good to be true.'"

"Well, you are a silly," said Nan absently, as her eyes wandered down the double line of shining rails to the spot where they disappeared in the distance. "I wonder if that mean old train is going to be late after all."

"No, there it is! There it is, Nan!" cried Bess, suddenly dancing wildly up and down the platform. "Oh, tell the folks to hurry. Mother has my hat box. I never, never could go to Palm Beach without that hat." And she ran back toward the older folks, waving her bag at them frantically while Nan looked after her laughingly.

"I wonder what Bess would do," she thought, without the slightest trace of conceit, "if she didn't have me to anchor her down all the time."

The train steamed into the station just as Momsey and Papa Sherwood and Mrs. Harley, with the excited Elizabeth in the lead, rushed upon the platform.

Nan was very much surprised to find that though she had become used to rather frequent partings with Momsey and Papa Sherwood, this one was not one bit easier than the others had been.

She hugged Papa Sherwood, kissed Momsey a dozen times, in spite of the fact that Bess was tugging at her elbow, and finally stumbled some way up the steps and into the car.

"Goodness! Anybody would think you were going away to stay forever," gasped Bess, as she tried to disengage herself from a tangle of bag and hat box and umbrella. "For goodness' sake, look out, Nan. We are moving." This, because Nan stuck her head far out of the window to get a last look at the dear folks on the platform.

"I know we're moving," sighed Nan, as she turned from the window and began patiently to separate Bess from her belongings and stow the articles away in the wire basket overhead. "I always have a funny feeling as if I were leaving half of me behind every time I say good-bye to Momsey and Papa Sherwood."

"I should think you would be used to it by this time," said Bess, as she removed her hat and fluffed out her pretty curls. "We certainly can't complain of having to stay too much in one place."

"I should say not!" exclaimed Nan, as she thought of how many wonderful things had happened since that day when she had started out for the great north woods with Uncle Henry. "But, oh, Bess," she added, turning happy eyes upon her chum, "we never went on quite such a wonderful journey as this—not even when we went to Rose Ranch."

"It all comes of having such nice friends," replied Bess, taking out a tiny hand mirror and regarding the tip of her nose critically. "And friends with money," she added significantly.

"Bess! How you talk!" cried the girl from Tillbury, turning a shocked gaze upon her friend. For Nan Sherwood never failed to be shocked at Elizabeth's very evident love of money and what it could buy. "If it were only money we cared for we might have made friends with Linda Riggs, I suppose. I heard her say something about going to Europe next summer, and I shouldn't wonder if she would take Cora Courtney and one or two more of her satellites with her. Perhaps if we had been very good, she might have asked us."

"Well, it would have been fun," said Bess, wickedly enjoying the shocked look that deepened on Nan's face. "Cheer up, Nan," she added with one of her sudden changes of mood. "You know very well how I hate Linda. However," she continued, "I suppose we really ought to be grateful to her now."

"Grateful?" repeated Nan wonderingly.

"For damaging the heating plant up at school, silly," explained Bess, "and giving us a chance to go to Florida."



CHAPTER XV

WE'RE OFF!

Nan could not help laughing at this speech of her chum's, and she turned her chair about to face Bess. Nan did not like riding backward in a train very much herself, but as Bess had declared she "simply couldn't stand it," it was unselfish Nan, as usual, who did the unpleasant thing.

But, the chair turned, as she sank down into its luxurious depth she looked across gravely at her friend.

"I don't see why you say that Linda did that awful thing up at school," she said. "We haven't the slightest proof in the world that she was the guilty one. That handkerchief you found didn't really prove anything."

Bess sniffed as she reached over to open her bag and get out from among its heterogeneous contents a box of sweets she had thoughtfully remembered to slip in before she started.

"Of course we don't know that she did it," she said, opening the box and offering it to Nan. "But you know very well there isn't another girl in the school who is mean enough to think of such a thing."

"Y-yes," answered Nan doubtfully, as she pushed the candy over toward its owner. "But on the other hand, I never thought Linda had nerve enough to do anything like that. Why, she might have been dreadfully hurt herself!"

"Of course she didn't know that she was in danger," retorted Bess, with a scornful little toss of her head. "She didn't have brains enough."

"Just the same," said Nan decidedly, "I don't think we ought to accuse her until we have something definite to go on."

"Isn't that just like Nan Sherwood!" cried Bess, regarding her chum with a mixture of fondness and irritation. "Always making excuses for everybody! I suppose if we had caught Linda in the act, you would still say it must have been somebody else."

"Hardly as bad as that," said Nan, with a little laugh, adding, while a cloud passed over her face: "Goodness knows I have more reason than any of the rest of the girls for disliking Linda. She never accused any one but me of stealing. I only hope," she added, "that we don't meet her somewhere on this trip."

"Goodness gracious, Nan!" cried Bess, fairly jumping from her seat in surprise, "you don't expect to meet her, do you?"

"If I did," said Nan ruefully, "I would get right off this train and go back to Tillbury, much as I have counted on this trip. No, honey," she added, laughing at her own extravagance, "there's no need of your getting excited, for I have no idea that we shall meet Linda at Palm Beach. Only she has the most disconcerting way of popping up in places where you least expect her."

"Well, all I have to say," returned Bess, biting fiercely into a fresh chocolate and wishing it were Linda instead, "is that I wish you wouldn't put such uncomfortable ideas into my head. Here I was just about forgetting Linda, and you have to lug her into the limelight again."

Nan laughed merrily and helped herself to another of Bess's chocolates without even so much as a "by your leave."

"Cheer up," she said, with a chuckle, "I've done all the 'lugging' I'm going to for a little while. And in the meantime," she added, her voice thrilling with anticipation, "let's think of something really pleasant—Palm Beach, for instance."

"Now you are talking!" cried Bess approvingly. "I have to pinch myself about every five minutes to realize that I'm really going there. I wonder if it is really as gay as people say it is. That's where all the actresses go, you know. And millionaires and authors——"

"And bald-headed business men and fussy, over-dressed women," added Nan demurely, her eyes twinkling at the look of horror that Bess turned upon her.

"Nan, how can you?" Bess burst out, as Nan had fully expected her to do. "Bald-headed men, indeed! Do you suppose I have come all this way just to see a lot of old bald-headed men?"

"You haven't come yet," Nan reminded her, her eyes sparkling. "I didn't say all the men were bald-headed," she added, in an attempt to soothe her outraged companion. "But dad says most of them are—especially the millionaires."

"Oh, how—how—dreadful!" stuttered Bess. "Why, all the millionaires I ever saw had beautiful, leonine heads with shaggy manes of thick white hair and strong, clearly cut chins——"

"That's in the movies," Nan interrupted with a chuckle. "Papa Sherwood says that if all the men had hair like the movie heroes they would have to spend all their energy growing it and wouldn't have time to attend to their brains. And then where would their millions be?"

"Well," said Bess, unable to find an answer to this queer question, yet still indignant, nevertheless, "you needn't go to work to spoil all my illusions. I don't believe you have a speck of romance anywhere about you, Nan Sherwood."

"Maybe I haven't," Nan admitted cheerfully, without looking the slightest bit worried about it. "But I expect to have lots of fun, just the same. Oh, Bess, look out!"

Bess, who had stood up to pull down the shade, jumped and looked about at Nan wildly.

"What's the matter?" she gasped. "Train on fire?"

"No. But you almost sat on a chocolate," said Nan calmly, as she removed the large and luscious sweet from Bess's seat. Bess stared at her reproachfully and sank back into the chair.

"You might just as well kill me as scare me to death," she said reproachfully.

For a while after that the happy girls forgot to talk and sat staring contentedly out at the flying landscape while the train pounded on heavily over the rails, singing its everlasting "catch 'em up, catch 'em up, catch 'em up."

Then suddenly Bess spoke, taking up the conversation where they had left it.

"If all we are going to find at Palm Beach is bald men and fussy women," she said, "I must say I don't see how we are going to have much fun."

"Oh, don't be such a silly," laughed Nan. "Of course we are going to find something else. There's the ocean and the palm trees. They say the scenery is perfectly gorgeous and the two big hotels wonderful, and there'll be the crowds and crowds of people. And then we shall meet Grace and Walter——"

"And Walter," repeated Bess teasingly, then laughed at the other girl's quick blush.

"Now I know you are silly," said Nan crossly. "You know you are glad Walter is going to be there."

"Of course I am," admitted Bess with suspicious promptness. "Walter is jolly good fun, especially when he has his Bargain Rush with him. But lately the rest of us girls—even Grace—have to hang on to his coat-tails to keep him from going off alone with you. He doesn't seem to know there's any one else around. Oh, you don't need to look so surprised, Miss Innocence," she added, as Nan regarded her with wide-open eyes. "You know it just as well as the rest of us."

"Oh—oh—I never heard of such a thing!" cried Nan, and her amazement was unfeigned. "I think you are perfectly horrid. Why, Walter has always been lovely to all of us. And as to his going off with me alone—why, that's nonsense, and you know it, Bess Harley!" Nan's amazement was rapidly giving way to indignation. "Walter has never gone off anywhere alone with me, never!"

"I know he hasn't," admitted Bess, with a chuckle. "And for a very good reason. We wouldn't let him."

Nan stared for a minute. Then something surprisingly like tears filled her eyes and she turned quickly to the window.

"I don't think you are nice," she said in a low voice. "If Walter has been any nicer to me than he has to any one else, I surely haven't noticed it. And now you've gone and spoiled everything. I won't want to go anywhere with him now just because I will be afraid you girls are saying silly things. And Walter's such awfully good fun!" The last was very much in the nature of a wail, and Bess's heart, which was never very hard at any time, softened and she slipped over to Nan's chair and put an arm about her chum.

"Move over," she commanded. "It's lucky neither of us is very fat or we couldn't both sit in one chair. That's right," as Nan obediently "moved over" but still kept her face to the window. "Now say you forgive me for being such an old bear. After all, honey," and she patted Nan's shoulder soothingly, "I suppose it isn't your fault if Walter likes you best."

Nan's shoulder moved impatiently.

"But he doesn't," she insisted, staring out of the window. "It isn't so."

"All right," agreed Bess soothingly. But it was lucky Nan could not see the twinkle in her eye. "Have it your own way, Nan. Only stop turning your back to me. It isn't polite. And, oh!" she added, with a little sigh, "I'm hungry."

At this sudden and very unromantic change in the subject Nan laughed. And as laughter and ill-temper never go hand in hand, it was not long before Nan had forgotten all about Walter—almost.

She produced the lunch box, and for once Bess was too ravenously hungry to protest at the "commonness" of it, and they set to at its delicious contents with a will.

It was eight o'clock when they went into the sleeping car, as they had been unable to secure a berth in Tillbury, and had had to telegraph ahead to have one reserved on a coach which was attached to the train further along the line.

"This is more like it," said Nan, as they entered the sleeping car. "I'll be glad enough to go to bed just as soon as we can see no more of the scenery we are passing."

"Who is to take the upper berth, you or I?" demanded her companion.

"Maybe we had better toss up for it," said Nan.

Just then the girls observed a lady on the opposite side of the aisle telling the colored porter not to fix the upper berth at all, that she and her daughter would both sleep below.

"Let's do that," suggested Nan.

"By all means," answered Bess; and so it was settled.

"Lots o' folks don't use dat dar upper berth," explained the porter as he fixed the lower bed only. "They leaves it up and dat gives 'em so much more room to stand up an' dress an' undress."

"It will just suit us," declared Bess.

Soon the berth was ready and a little later the girls retired.

Being together they had thought to have a good "talk-fest," as Bess called it. But alas! both were so tired out that they fell asleep almost before they knew it. And neither woke up until morning, when they were rolling into New York City.

"Gracious; time to get up!" and Nan lost no time in dressing and Bess followed her example.

The first part of their momentous journey had come to an end.



CHAPTER XVI

FUN AND NONSENSE

In her impatience Bess Harley thought she had never known a crowd to move so slowly. Of course all the people on the train were getting out at New York, for the simple reason that the train did not go any farther.

At any other time the girls would have been tremendously pleased about going to New York. But now, with the even more wonderful prospect of Florida looming up, New York appealed to them simply as a means to an end.

"It's that fat man at the end," hissed Bess in Nan's ear. "He's holding up the whole procession. What's he talking about, anyway?"

"Sh-h," whispered Nan. "He may hear you. Are you sure you have everything, honey?" she added, making a mental count of Bess's belongings to make certain that her careless chum had left nothing behind.

"For goodness' sake, Nan Sherwood, I wonder you don't have a record made of that question and then turn it on every five minutes or so," said Bess, whose temper was beginning to be ruffled by the delay. "That's all I hear from morning to night. 'Are you sure you have everything?' I think I'll try it on you and see how you like it."

"Oh, I'd love it," cried Nan, with such fervor that Bess looked at her in surprise. "It's this bag," explained Nan, looking down at her own handsome suitcase. "I'm certain it will be stolen or I'll lose it or something before we can get to Florida."

"Well, it is an expensive suitcase," Bess admitted, as the fat man at the front of the car finished his argument with the conductor and the line of passengers moved slowly on toward the door. "But you never used to lie awake at night worrying about it."

It was Nan's turn to look her amazement.

"It isn't the bag I'm worrying about, and you ought to know that," she said in a low voice. "It's what is in the bag."

"Oh!" said Bess, suddenly remembering, "you mean those papers Mrs. Bragley gave you? Well, I wouldn't worry about them," she added carelessly. "I don't believe they are really worth anything, anyway."

"Oh, hush," Nan begged her as they stepped upon the platform and a man turned to look at them curiously. "Please don't mention any names, Bess. It might make trouble."

"Why, Nan Sherwood, how you talk!" cried Bess, turning to look curiously at her chum. "You might really think those old papers were worth something."

"I believe they are," said Nan seriously, as, with bag clutched tightly in her hand, she started with Bess down the long bustling platform. "Anyway, I want to do my best to help the poor woman. I felt dreadfully sorry for her."

"I feel sorry for everybody who isn't going to Palm Beach," cried Bess gaily, as she looked about her with sparkling eyes. "Oh, Nan, isn't this a lark?"

"You'd better look out," cried Nan sharply, as Bess stepped directly in front of a heaped-up baggage truck that was being trundled heavily down the platform, "or it will be a tragedy instead."

The girls had supposed they had become accustomed to the noise and confusion of a big city during their visit in Chicago, but as they stepped from the great Pennsylvania Station on to the crowded New York street they felt disconcertingly like startled country girls arriving in the city for the first time.

"Goodness! I thought Chicago was awful," whispered Bess in Nan's ear. "But this is worse. What shall we do?"

"That's easy," said Nan, taking command of the situation as usual. "Papa Sherwood told me to take a taxi straight over to the dock and not to speak to any one on the way."

"Well, I think we'll have our choice of taxis," remarked Bess, with a chuckle, as several chauffeurs standing by or sitting in cabs drawn up along the curb espied the well-dressed girls and immediately set up a cry of "Taxi, taxi! Right this way, lady!"

Looking as if she had been used to riding around in taxicabs in strange and noisy cities all her life, Nan walked forward, still clutching the precious bag that held Mrs. Bragley's papers and calmly selected a brilliant yellow cab whose driver opened the door to her respectfully.

Bess followed, all eyes and ears for the noise and confusion of the street. Nan gave instructions to the chauffeur, who touched his cap, slammed the door shut on the girls and sprang to his seat in front.

"I think you are just wonderful, Nan Sherwood," said Bess, when they were gliding swiftly off through the bewildering traffic. "I was frightened to death when all those men started shouting at us at once. I wanted to run back into the station and hide. But you didn't, and of course I didn't, and here we are!" She gave an excited little bounce on the seat. "Only," she added reproachfully, "I don't see why you picked out a yellow taxi. You know I hate yellow."

"Goodness! I didn't even notice the color," said Nan, feeling her suitcase with one foot to be sure it was still there. "If you will just tell me what color you like best I'll send a note to the governor and ask him to have them painted that way."

"How sweet of you," mocked Bess, and a moment later grasped her chum's arm in fright. "Did you see that?" she cried, as the driver put on his brakes and they stopped within about two inches of the back of a great lumbering truck. "I'm afraid this driver is going to kill us before ever we can get to the dock."

"Never mind, honey," said Nan soothingly, though she herself had been considerably startled at the close call. "Papa Sherwood says all the drivers are like that in New York, and yet there are very few accidents. We must be near the dock, anyway."

"Isn't that horrid?" cried Bess with one of her quick changes of interest. "Just think, we'll have to go and leave New York before we have really seen anything of it."

Nan shrugged her shoulders helplessly.

"I thought you weren't enjoying your ride," she said, "and here you are bemoaning the fact that it is nearly over. Bess, I give you up."

Bess merely chuckled, and a few minutes later insisted upon stopping the machine while she got out and bought some oranges from a tempting fruit-stand.

"Now," she said, proudly exhibiting her purchase to Nan when the car was once more bumping onward over cobblestones toward the dock, "we sha'n't starve on our trip, anyway. Oh, look, Nan; we're there!" she cried, pointing excitedly out of the window. "See that thing over there that looks like something between a cave and a barn with a sign over it? That must be the entrance to one of the docks. Yes, see the people going in? And there's another and another. Oh, oh!"

"For goodness' sake, sit still," commanded Nan. "You're spilling all the oranges."

"My, what a joy killer you are, Nan Sherwood," sighed Bess, as she rebelliously stuffed the bag of oranges into her already over-filled suitcase. "What are a few oranges more or less at a glorious time like this?"

Then the taxicab left the rough pavement and rolled along over the smooth asphalt. On all sides of them were trucks and autos, with here and there a horse-drawn vehicle. The noise was something awful.

"Goodness gracious, how different from the quietness at the Hall!" remarked Bess.

"And how different even from Tillbury," returned Nan.

"What a lot of foreigners here, Nan."

"I guess they come from the ships. The docks are all along here, so I've been told."

"I wouldn't want to come down here after dark and all alone."

"No, I'd not like that myself, Bess."

"Some of those men look like regular Italian brigands."

"Yes, and others look like Russian anarchists."

Suddenly the machine came to a standstill and the man in front looked about at Nan and repeated the instructions she had given him to make sure he had them correctly.

"That's right," answered Nan, nodding. "We must be almost there, aren't we?"

"Yes, Miss," said the man, as he started the car again. "See that dock over yonder? That's it." And he swung the machine about in a semicircle and headed for one of the openings which Bess had described as "something between a cave and a barn."

"Nan, I never felt so funny before," Bess confided to her chum. "I think I am going to faint or something."

"And I think you had better not," said Nan, in alarm. "I have all I can do to carry my own luggage without having you piled on top of it."

"You wouldn't have to carry me," giggled Bess incorrigibly. "I'd ask the good-looking chauffeur to do it."

"How could you ask him anything if you had fainted?" asked Nan, beginning systematically to get her things together. "Hurry up, Bess. I guess this is where we get off. Are you sure——"

"You have everything?" finished the irrepressible Bess with another giggle. "I was just waiting for that. Look out, Nan. You stepped on my toe."

"I know it," said Nan calmly. "I did it on purpose."

Nan seized the opportunity to make good her escape, and Bess, following close upon her heels, whispered dramatically in her ear: "Take care, woman! You shall not again escape me. Next time I will spit thee like a goose."

"All right," said Nan, turning calmly to the driver who was waiting for his fee. "Only wait a minute, will you? I have to pay the fare."



CHAPTER XVII

THE MYSTERIOUS MEN

As the machine drove away several street urchins came running toward the girls, begging the privilege of carrying their bags. Nan would have refused, the bags being not at all heavy and the walk to the end of the dock from the entrance not very far, but Bess nudged her sharply.

"Go ahead," she urged. "I have a quarter to pay for it. Don't be a silly."

So Nan obeyed and reluctantly handed over to one of the eager street urchins the handsome bag which contained, among other things, Mrs. Bragley's papers. Bess had already loaded the small boy with her own belongings, and it seemed impossible to Nan that the lad could be able to carry it all.

Yet he sauntered ahead quite cheerfully while the other boys turned away disappointed to wait for the next arrival.

As the girls emerged from the long, tunnel-like entrance into the bright sunshine of the dock they quickened their steps instinctively. The steamship Dorian, which was to carry them to Florida, was already waiting for the passengers.

Nan had never seen a harbor like this before, and she gazed with fascinated eyes out over the glistening water, dotted thickly with craft of all sizes and descriptions.

There were a great many docks like the kind upon which she and Bess were standing, and they stretched out into the harbor like so many legs of an octopus, cleaving the brilliant water with dark ugly gashes.

Over all the bustling harbor was a sense of feverish activity, of mystery and romance, of adventuring in far, fair lands that set Nan's blood atingle and made her breath come quickly.

"What are you waiting for?" Bess asked impatiently, and Nan roused from her reverie with a start.

"I wasn't waiting, I was just looking," said Nan in a soft voice, as they started up the gangplank that led to the deck of the Dorian. "I never saw anything so wonderful."

"Beg pardon, Miss," said a voice in her ear, and a small hand was laid upon her arm.

Nan turned quickly and saw that it was their small luggage carrier. In their preoccupation the girls had both of them forgotten about their precious bags.

With quick fingers Nan fished in her purse for the necessary quarter, gave it to the boy and received her bag in return.

"Oh, Bess!" she cried as the boy tipped his cap and started on, "how could I ever have done such a thing? Why, if I had lost this bag I never would have dared face Mrs. Bragley again. Never in this wide world!"

"I wish Mrs. Bragley were in Guinea," said Bess crossly. "She and her old papers are just about going to spoil our trip. They are making you as nervous as a cat."

"Sh-h, Bess, not so loud," cautioned Nan, as they stepped upon the deck of the Dorian and handed over the tickets which Papa Sherwood had secured for them.

It was perhaps fortunate for the girls' peace of mind that they did not notice two men who were closely behind them. One of the men was fat and short and had little eyes and a bald head, which he was now mopping vigorously with a rather soiled handkerchief.

His companion was his complete opposite. He was tall and thin, with a severe, straight line for a mouth and long, nervous hands, and had a habit of caressing his beardless chin as though a beard had once grown there.

As the tall thin man, whom his companion called Jensen, overheard Nan's startled reference to Mrs. Bragley's papers, he put a hand upon the fat man's arm and nodded once with a sort of jerk of satisfaction.

"What did I say, Davis?" he asked, in a carefully guarded voice. "I tell you, I am never wrong." And his eyes followed the girls as they started down the deck in the direction of their cabin.

As they, in turn, stepped upon the deck, the short man looked up at his tall companion and said rather enigmatically: "Sometimes I wonder, Jensen, whether you are a great man, or a great fool. It's certainly great to have them on this trip to Florida with us."

Although the girls knew nothing of this strange conversation, Nan was extremely careful to stow her bag away in a corner of their stateroom and piled several things on it and about it so that it could not be easily seen by curious eyes.

"Nan, if you don't leave that old thing alone I'm going to throw it overboard," Bess finally said complainingly. "You act as if it contained diamonds and rubies instead of——"

"Oh, please hush," said Nan, rising quickly from her knees and coming over to Bess. "I don't know what has gotten into me lately, Bess dear," she said, speaking so earnestly that her chum regarded her in surprise; "but ever since I took charge of those papers I have had the strangest impression that I am being watched."

"Nan!" cried Bess, looking uneasily over her shoulder, "what a terrible thing. But, of course, it's only imagination," she added easily, for it was instinct with Bess to cast aside anything that threatened to worry her or interfere with her fun. "I told you the old papers were getting on your nerves."

"You're right," said Nan, with a little sigh as she rose to take off her coat and hat and straighten her hair before the tiny mirror. "They certainly are getting on my nerves."

"Well, for goodness' sake get them off then," commanded Bess, bouncing impatiently on a berth. "I never saw such a girl to take everybody else's troubles on her own shoulders. I'll be glad when you turn the papers over to Mr. Mason."

Nan smiled a resigned little smile at her reflection in the mirror. Then she came over and put an arm about her pouting chum.

"All right," she promised gaily, "I won't ever do it again. Only come on and smile, honey. If you knew how pretty you look when you do, you would never do anything else."

There are very few girls who can withstand an appeal like that, and Bess was not one of them. A smile replaced the frown immediately and the next minute she was chatting merrily about their crowded little stateroom and the two narrow berths, one above the other, wondering with a grimace whether they would be seasick or not, and so, on and on, till Nan's momentary depression forsook her and she felt again the thrill that had quickened her blood as they had stood on the dock, gazing out over the harbor.

Yet, almost unknown to Nan herself, there lingered in the back of her mind a strange, uneasy premonition of trouble to come, and again and again her eyes sought the spot where the bag with Mrs. Bragley's papers stowed safely inside lay hidden.

"I wonder which one of us is going to take the upper berth," Bess chattered gaily on. "You had better, Nan, because you're thinner than I. And then if the berth should cave in it wouldn't hurt you so much because there would be something soft to fall on. It's a snug little place, isn't it?"

"Snug is right," said Nan, with a giggle. "You can't turn around without running in to something."

"That's Linda's fault. She shouldn't have wrecked the heating system at school in the Palm Beach season. If it had been in December now, or March, there wouldn't have been such a crowd and we could have had a real honest to goodness stateroom, instead of this two-by-one hole in the wall."

"Elizabeth, how shocking," laughed Nan. "You must have been taking lessons from Walter." And then, for no apparent reason at all, or perhaps because of the expression in her chum's eyes as they rested upon her, Nan became suddenly confused and hurriedly changed the subject.

"Let's go outside," she suggested, rising and making toward the door of the stateroom, which opened directly out upon the deck. "It—it's awfully hot in here."

Bess laughed tantalizingly and stretched lazily as she prepared to follow her chum.

"Nan, honey," she drawled, irrelevantly, or so it seemed to Nan, "you are a darling, but, oh, you're awfully foolish."



CHAPTER XVIII

A STARTLING REVELATION

It was a wonderful journey, that one to Jacksonville, and one the girls never forgot. At first the weather was unpleasant, cold and blowy, but toward the afternoon of the second day the gentle winds of the south fanned them with their welcoming breath, and heavy wraps began to feel burdensome.

At first the girls had been afraid that they would become seasick and had wondered what they would do should such a weakness overtake them.

"I know I'll just lie down and die, if I get sick on this steamer," Bess had declared.

"Oh, no, you won't, Bess," Nan had made reply. "You'll do as everybody else has to—grin and bear it."

"But to be sick on a ship that is rolling and pitching all the time——"

"You can keep in your berth, you know."

"There is no fun in that."

"Then go on deck—and make an exhibition of yourself."

"Nan Sherwood, I think that, on occasion, you are utterly heartless."

"So are you."

"Oh, I see. Trying to get square for what I said about Walter Mason."

"Not at all. I am only——"

But there Nan had had to stop, for a sudden lurch of the steamer had thrown her against the wash-stand. Bess had gone sprawling on the floor.

"I—I didn't think it would be so rough," Bess had gasped out, on arising.

"I—I don't think it is going to be so awful bad," Nan had declared. And she had been right. By noon of the second day the sea was quite smooth. Neither of the girls felt a bit of seasickness and both were glad to go on deck and enjoy the sunshine.

"What a change since yesterday," said Bess, as the two girls stood by the rail looking out over the lazily rolling water. "It seems almost like magic, doesn't it?"

"It's wonderful," breathed Nan happily. "It seemed so silly to pack all my summer things when the wind was blowing like mad and it was ten above zero in Tillbury. But now I'm mighty glad we did. Whew, isn't this coat warm!"

"Cheer up," cried Bess gaily. "Maybe by to-night it will be so warm we can put all our winter things in storage and blossom out in silk georgette and white flannels like veritable butterflies from a crystal—I mean chrysalis. Nan, are you listening to me?" she demanded severely, for Nan's eyes had deserted the long line of lazy combers and were following the figures of two men, one long and one short, who were strolling slowly down the deck.

"Bess, do you see those men?" asked Nan, with a troubled inflection that caused Bess to look at her sharply.

"Yes, my dear," she answered. "My eyes are still in good working condition."

"Does there seem anything strange about them?" Nan insisted. "Anything like spying?"

Bess jumped and regarded the back of her chum's head reproachfully.

"For goodness' sake, Nan!" she cried, "you are never going to start that all over again, are you? I thought you had got over that silly notion you had of being followed."

"I wish it were only a notion, Bess," said the girl, turning such a serious face to her chum that for once even careless Bess was sobered.

"Why, Nan, what do you mean?" she asked. "You can't mean that there is really somebody spying upon you!"

"That's just what I do mean," said Nan soberly. "I didn't want to worry you, Bess, so I didn't tell you. But something happened last night——" She stopped suddenly, for the two men were coming back again, apparently absorbed in conversation.



Presently the tall man and his short companion passed and as they did so Nan gave each a searching look. The men did not happen to see the girls, and soon were out of sight around a turn.

"I am almost sure they are the same," murmured Nan and her face was a study.

"Nan, you talk in riddles!" cried her chum. "What does it mean?"

"I'll tell you, Bess, even though I don't want to frighten you still more."

And thereupon Nan related how she had seen two strange men near her home and at the local drugstore and the railroad station, and how one had stepped up as if to speak to her and then hurried away.

"I am almost sure they are the same, and, oh, Bess, one of them has such an awful look in his eyes! I am sure they cannot be at all nice."

"Humph! That is certainly strange," murmured Bess. "I guess those chaps will bear watching. What can they be up to, do you think—watching your house and following you like that?"

"I haven't finished. Last night——"

"Oh, yes, you started to tell about last night. Go ahead—oh, it's so exciting—just like a movies!"

"You remember we went down to the dining-room together," Nan went on in a low tone, "and I suddenly remembered that we had forgotten to lock the door. I was a little frightened, for I thought of Mrs. Bragley's papers and our jewelry, and I almost ran back.

"Just as I opened the door," Nan's voice quickened with excitement and Bess leaped forward eagerly, "I saw a shadow on the glass of the other door—the one that opens upon the deck."

"Why, Nan! are you sure?" gasped Bess, catching herself up quickly to add, "Never mind. Don't bother to answer me. What happened next?"

"Well, for a minute I just stood there," said Nan, her eyes searching nervously for the reappearance of the two men on deck. "I guess I was just too surprised or frightened to speak, for the shadow on the door was that of a man, and he was trying the door!"

"Oh, Nan, what did you do?" demanded her wide-eyed chum. "I should just have screamed and run away."

"A lot of good that would have done," said Nan, a little contemptuously. "I wanted to scream, but I didn't think of running away."

"Of course you wouldn't," said Bess humbly. "But go on, Nan. What did you do?"

"I threw a bathrobe over my grip in the first place," said Nan. "I had left it standing out in the room. And then I pulled the door open just as the man started to open it from the outside."

"Oh, Nan!" cried Bess again. "Then he really meant to come in?"

"Of course he did—although he said he didn't," said Nan grimly. "When I pulled the door open suddenly and stood looking at him he acted as if I was a ghost or something. He did for a minute, that is. Then he straightened up and sort of put on a smile—you know, the way you would put on a coat to cover up a soiled dress or something——"

"Why, Nan, I never——" Bess began indignantly, then interrupted herself again. "Never mind me," she begged. "You've got me so excited that I don't know just what I'm saying. What happened then, Nan? Didn't you say something?"

"Of course I said something," returned Nan. "I asked him what he was doing at my stateroom door and what he wanted."

"What did he say?" whispered Bess, her eyes wide in wonder.

"He said that he was very sorry. That he thought this was his stateroom. That he wouldn't have startled me for the world. And then he bowed himself out and I slammed the door after him."

"But, Nan," Bess had regained her breath again and felt in the mood for an argument, "how do you know that the man really hadn't made a mistake? I suppose it would be easy enough to get mixed up."

"Bess, that man didn't make any mistake," said Nan Sherwood with such conviction in her voice that once more Bess was startled.

"How do you know?"

"He was the meanest man I ever saw—his looks I mean," said Nan, apparently not noticing her chum's interruption. "If you could have seen him as I opened the door, you would feel just the way I do. He had probably seen us going down to dinner and thought it was a good chance to get into the stateroom and steal——"

"Steal!" gasped poor Bess, for Nan was getting her pretty thoroughly frightened. "You mean he was a thief, Nan?"

"Of course," Nan returned impatiently. "I don't suppose honest men are in the habit of sneaking into empty staterooms."

"But if it was a mistake——" Bess interrupted, grasping at a straw.

"It wasn't any mistake," Nan repeated gravely. "If he had thought it was his own door, he would have opened it quickly. He wouldn't have been so slow and cautious about it."

"But, Nan! what could he have wanted to steal from us? It isn't as though we had one of those handsome staterooms down below that cost a fortune to hire even for a night. We haven't anything so very valuable."

"Except Mrs. Bragley's papers," said Nan grimly. "I wonder you didn't think of them."

"Oh!" said Bess. "The papers! Yes, of course there were the papers. Why, Nan," she turned upon her chum excitedly, "do you really suppose they can be as important as that? Why, I never dreamed——"

"I know you didn't. But I did," said Nan decidedly. She then added under her breath as the two men turned a corner and again headed down the deck toward them: "Don't say anything. Wait until these men have passed and then look at them, the tall, thin one in particular."

Bess was about to exclaim, but Nan silenced her with a look and they waited quietly while the strangers once more sauntered past them. Evidently they were taking a prolonged constitutional about the deck.

Bess stole a quick glance at them and then turned back to her chum.

"They are the same men who passed us just a little while ago," she said with a puzzled frown.

"Yes. And one of them, the tall, thin one with a slit for a mouth, is the man who tried to enter our stateroom," said Nan earnestly. "I'm just telling you this so that you will be more careful to lock our stateroom door whenever you go in or out."

"Goodness—Gracious—Agnes!" gasped Bess, mimicking Procrastination Boggs in her agitation. "You are actually making me nervous, Nan Sherwood. Lock the door, indeed! As if we were afraid of being murdered in our beds! Why, I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night. I never heard of such a thing."

"You needn't look at me as if I were to blame," said Nan with spirit. "I didn't ask that horrid thin thing and his little fat friend to follow us all over and nearly give me heart failure. I'll be glad when this trip is over, I'll tell you that."

"So will I," said Bess morosely. "But I'll be gladder still when you get rid of those old papers of Mrs. Bragley's—if that is what they are after."

"The one thing that makes me feel good," said Nan thoughtfully, as if speaking to herself, "is that the papers must be worth something or these horrid men wouldn't be so anxious to get them back. Maybe we shall find that poor Mrs. Bragley is a rich woman yet."

"Either that, or else that we have made a big mistake and the men are not after the papers at all."

"But if not after the papers, what?"

"I don't know."



CHAPTER XIX

AN ATTEMPTED THEFT

That night the girls were very careful to lock both doors and Bess even went to the length of suggesting that they pile some furniture against them.

"It might be a good idea," Nan had replied, laughing at her, "if there were only some furniture to pile. What are you doing, Bess? You aren't stuffing cotton in the keyhole?"

"You needn't laugh, Miss Smarty," Bess had retorted, straightening up defiantly with a large wad of the cotton still in her hand and a telltale tuft of it protruding from the keyhole. "I'm not going to have any skinny old man with a funny mouth looking in at me while I sleep, I can tell you! Nan Sherwood," she added threateningly, as Nan went off into a gale of uncontrollable mirth, "if you don't stop laughing, I'll stuff the rest of this cotton down your throat, and I just hope you'll choke."

"Oh, Bess! Elizabeth Harley!" gasped Nan. "You look so foolish standing there with that wad of cotton in your hand. And the keyholes look as if they had the earache. Oh, oh!" and she went off again into half hysterical laughter.

Bess, after staring at her a minute, gave up all attempt at being dignified and joined in merrily.

"Goodness! you would make an Egyptian mummy laugh, Nan Sherwood," said Bess, as she wiped away the tears of mirth. "Who ever heard of keyholes having the earache! Just the same," she added more soberly, as she started to unfasten her dress, "you have got me terribly worried about those men. I know I'll dream of them all night."

"Oh, no, you won't," said Nan serenely, as she set about the business of undressing. Then she added, with a chuckle: "I feel perfectly safe now that the keyholes are stuffed!"

It was not long after this that the two girls laid down to sleep. But Nan was restless and could hardly close her eyes.

"Those old papers," she murmured to herself. "I should have turned them over to Mr. Mason, or put them in the ship's safe. I don't see why I make myself keep them, unless it is that I want to prove to myself that I have some backbone."

Presently she heard Bess breathing heavily, showing her chum was in the land of slumber, and then gradually she dozed off.

Nan had been asleep about an hour when she awoke with a start.

She had heard a noise, of that she felt certain—a noise out of the ordinary and not connected with the running of the ship.

What was it? Was somebody trying the door?

She turned over and, feeling for the push button, turned on the electric light. This move awakened Bess.

"What's the matter, are you sick?" asked the latter.

"No. I—I heard something—it woke me up," Nan replied and got to her feet.

"Maybe those men——"

"Hush! If they are outside the door they may hear you, Bess."

With caution the two girls tiptoed to first one door and then the other and peered out.

In the cabin only a porter sleeping in an armchair was to be seen, while out on the deck not a soul was in sight.

"You must have been dreaming, Nan," said Bess, yawning. "Come, let us try to get some more rest before morning."

Nan was not satisfied and looked all around the stateroom, thinking a mouse might be wandering around. But no mouse was found, and at last both girls retired again. But Nan did not sleep very well and was glad when the rising sun proclaimed another day at hand.

Nan, swinging one bare foot experimentally over the edge of her berth, felt it caught and held tight by an invisible hand. She peered over the edge of the berth at the imminent risk of falling over herself and breaking her neck, and found, as she had expected, that Bess was her captor. The latter was holding on to her foot with one hand and rubbing her eyes sleepily with the other.

"Say, let go my foot," Nan hailed her inelegantly. "Haven't you got enough of your own that you have to steal one of mine?"

"You talk as if we were centipedes," said Bess, releasing Nan's foot and sitting up grumpily in the berth. "I told you I wouldn't sleep a wink last night, and I didn't."

"You aren't the only one," said Nan, as she swung her other foot over the edge of the berth and felt gingerly for a footing on the one below. "I didn't sleep very well myself. But never mind," she added, as she slipped safely to the floor, unharmed by her perilous descent. "We'll forget all about such little things as sleepless nights when we get out on deck. Have you forgotten that we reach Florida to-day?"

Bess stared at her a minute, then scrambled quickly out of bed and began pulling on her clothes hastily, getting them awry in her eagerness to get dressed in the shortest time possible.

"Gracious, Nan," she cried reproachfully, as she began to drag the comb impatiently through her tumbled curls, "you scared me so with those men and Mrs. Bragley's horrible papers that I forgot everything else. Fancy! A few hours more and we shall be in Florida!"

Immediately this thought put all other thoughts to flight in the mind of careless but lovable Bess Harley, and she would have left the door of their stateroom wide open had not Nan reminded her to close it and turn the key in the lock.

The girls ate breakfast hurriedly, and when they came out on deck it was after eight o'clock. That gave them just time to pack their few belongings before the Dorian steamed up the St. Johns River into the busy harbor of Jacksonville.

Bess's prediction had come true. Over night the weather had become so delightfully mild that heavy clothing was not only unnecessary, but very uncomfortable, and the girls had donned white suits and white hats with stockings and shoes to match. They were looking distinctly attractive—and knew it. At least Bess did. And it must be admitted that even modest Nan had been surprised and not a little pleased by her radiant reflection in the tiny mirror in their stateroom.

And now, though they knew that the last minute packing should be done first, they still lingered by the rail, gazing over the brilliantly calm water to where the tropically beautiful Florida coast stood out boldly against the skyline.

"What wonderful, wonderful weather!" sighed Nan, as they finally deserted the rail and made their way through the excited crowd—for nearly every one on board the Dorian had come out on deck, clad in white flannels and other summery attire, eager to get their first glimpse of Florida—and on toward their stateroom.

Suddenly Nan clutched her friend's arm and pointed excitedly.

"Look!" she cried in a low voice. "The tall man! He's there with the fat one in front of our door. And, Bess, look! He has something in his hand. It's a key!"

"Oh, Nan!" gasped Bess, "he would never dare. Not in this crowd!"

"Come on!" ejaculated Nan tensely, as she elbowed and pushed her way through the crowd.

The two girls were almost upon the thin man and his companion before they were discovered. Then the fat man nudged his friend sharply, and before the girls could blink the men had slipped around the corner of the cabin and were lost to view among the crowd.

"Let's go after them," cried Bess excitedly. "We mustn't let them get away from us, Nan. Why, they were trying to get into our room. I saw them."

"Oh, Bess, hush," begged Nan as several people turned to look at the girls curiously. "Come inside a minute. I want to talk to you."

She opened the door and half pushed, half dragged the excited Bess inside the stateroom where the latter sank upon the berth and stared at her friend indignantly.

"You've gone and let them get away," she accused her hotly. "And that ugly thin man was trying to get in. We saw him."

"I know all that," said Nan a trifle impatiently. For several days her nerves had been under a considerable strain and the effort to think and act for Bess as well as herself was beginning to tell on her. "It wouldn't have done us the slightest good in the world to have gone after him. We never could have found him."

"But we can at least tell the captain," returned Bess, jumping to her feet impatiently. "I never saw a girl like you, Nan. I really believe you intend to let him get away."

"Well, what else can I do?" asked Nan quietly. "If I go to the captain and tell him I found a couple of men standing in front of my door and that I want them arrested, he will think that I'm crazy."

"But they had a key! They were trying to get in! We saw them!" insisted Bess, pacing excitedly up and down the small stateroom.

"I know we did," said Nan patiently. "But the captain could never arrest the men on such evidence. He would want proof. And you know as well as I do that we haven't any."

"We-el," said Bess irresolutely, sitting down on the edge of the berth and staring blackly at the opposite wall, "I suppose you are right, Nan Sherwood. You usually are. But I do know one thing." She stirred impatiently and mechanically straightened her pretty white hat. "And that is that I won't enjoy myself one bit till we make those men stop following us around and trying to get into our room with skeleton keys. I suppose that is what he had. Oh, dear, it does seem as if something were always happening to take the joy out of life!"

Nan ventured a shaky little laugh at this and began automatically picking up her things and stuffing them into her bag.

"You had better get ready, Bess," she advised. "We shall reach Jacksonville in a little while. We don't want to be left behind."

"I should say not!" said Bess vehemently. "I wouldn't stay on this old boat another night after what happened this morning—not for anything. I hope," she added, as she slammed her brush into her suitcase, "that we sha'n't see any more of those horrid men after we once get on shore."

"I hope we sha'n't." Nan echoed the wish fervently, but in her heart she was very sure that they had not seen the last of the tall, thin man and his chubby companion.

That they were after the papers that had been entrusted to her care by poor, confiding Sarah Bragley, she had little doubt. And the fact that whoever these men were, they were desperately anxious to recover the papers showing the widow's title to the tract of land in Florida, fostered Nan's belief that the property must be of considerable value and automatically strengthened her determination to hold on to the papers at all cost.

She was so engrossed with her own thoughts that Bess had to speak to her twice before she could bring her back to a realization of the present.

"Hurry up," she cried, handing Nan her suitcase and fairly pushing her out on the deck. "From the noise everybody is making, I guess we're there. For goodness' sake, Nan!" she exclaimed as her chum switched her suitcase from one hand to the other, so that it would be between Bess and herself, "don't bump that bag into me—especially right behind the knees. You are apt to make me sit down suddenly."

"You couldn't. There's too much of a crowd," laughed Nan, then added in a lower tone, while her eyes nervously searched the crowd about her: "Please help me to look out for my bag, honey. I'm awfully afraid I might lose it."



CHAPTER XX

THOSE MEN AGAIN

The two girls saw nothing more of the men who had played such a mysterious part in their trip, and before they had started, with hundreds of other gaily dressed people, down the gangplank of the Dorian they had almost forgotten their strange adventure.

Nor, under the circumstances, could this be wondered at. All about them was the bustle and excitement that is always attendant upon going ashore.

Every one was in hilarious holiday mood, and Nan and Bess would have been queer indeed if they had not entered into the spirit of the day with all their hearts.

"I just can't keep my feet still," Bess confided to her chum, as they filed slowly down the gangplank. "Isn't this the most wonderful day you ever saw in your life, Nan? Just think, this kind of weather in February! It does me good," she added, her eyes sparkling, "to think of all the other girls at home going around with furs on and thick coats and complaining of the cold. Oh, how I wish I could see them now."

"Elizabeth! what a mean disposition," said Nan demurely, adding with a twinkle in her eyes, while she tried hard to keep her feet from fox-trotting away with her down the gangplank: "Though I would like to send a little note to Linda and tell her to be careful not to go out in the cold. It might make her nose red. Oh, Bess, look down there!" She leaned forward suddenly, her eyes shining with eagerness. "Isn't that Grace? And Walter——"

"And Rhoda! Yes, it is, and they are waving to us," cried Bess eagerly. "Of course Grace and Walter said they would be here to meet us, but I was afraid they never would find us in all this crowd."

Someway the girls got down to the dock, were hugged by Grace and Rhoda, greeted hilariously by Walter, and were hustled, out of breath, through the crowd that thronged about them.

"How in the world did you get here, Rhoda?" demanded Nan, when she could get a chance to ask the question.

"I thought I'd surprise you," declared the girl from Rose Ranch. "I fixed it all up with Grace and told her not to say a word."

"It's grand!" declared Nan, beaming.

"The best ever," added Bess. "Oh, what grand times we girls are going to have!"

"Sure we are going to have a grand time," said the girl from Rose Ranch. "I think I deserve it, after all the trouble I've been through."

"What do you suppose, she was in a railroad wreck," burst out Grace. "A real, live-to-goodness wreck, too."

"Oh, Rhoda, were you injured?" cried Nan quickly.

"Just a few scratches—on my left elbow and my shins. But it was a close call, I can tell you."

"Where was it?" asked Bess.

"Out in Connecticut. I went there to visit a distant relative of my dad. It was a little side line and our train ran into a freight. We knocked open a car full of chickens and what do you think? Those chickens scattered far and wide. I'll bet many a family is having chicken dinner on the sly this week!"

"Then nobody was hurt?"

"Oh, yes, several were more or less bruised and one man had an arm broken. But everybody was thankful, for they said it might have been much worse. But it certainly was funny to see those chickens scattering in every direction over the snow-covered fields," and Rhoda laughed at the recollection.

"Gee, if a fellow had been there with a gun he might have had some hunting," cried Walter.

"Oh, Walter, you wouldn't hunt chickens with a gun, would you?" asked Nan, reproachfully.

"Don't know as I would," was the quick reply.

"Oh, but now we are together, won't we have lovely times," cried Bess.

"The very best ever," echoed Nan.

"Going to let me out?" demanded Walter.

"No, indeed, Walter, you are included."

The girls and Walter continued to compare notes, when all of a sudden Rhoda uttered a cry.

"Girls, am I seeing a ghost?" she asked, staring straight ahead of her toward a group of richly dressed people who were talking and laughing together. "Or is that Linda Riggs?"

"Goodness, don't say it, Rhoda!" cried Bess in dismay. "It can't be Linda!"

But it was! For at that moment the youngest of the much over-dressed women in the group turned with a laugh to speak to someone behind her, and the girls found themselves face to face with their schoolgirl enemy, Linda Riggs.

For all their dislike of the girl, the chums would have spoken to her. But Linda stared at them coolly for a second, and then deliberately turned her back upon them and began to speak to a tall, gray-haired man at her right, who the girls instinctively felt must be her father, the railroad president.

"Those young ladies seemed to know you, my dear," they heard the tall man say to Linda, as, flushed and indignant, the girls and Walter pressed on through the crowd.

"They do," they heard Linda answer contemptuously, and with no attempt to lower her voice. "But I prefer not to know them—especially that Sherwood girl."

What the tall man said in answer, the girls could not hear, for they were once more engulfed in a sea of chattering humanity whose din swallowed up all individual sound.

Impulsive Bess wanted to turn back and tell "that horrible Riggs girl" what she thought of her, but Nan put an arm about her angry chum and hurried her on.

"But, Nan, I don't see how you can stand such things and never say a word," cried Bess, indignantly. "I do believe you haven't any spirit. I never could take an insult like that so calmly."

"I'm not a bit calm," replied Nan, gripping her bag fiercely. "Right this minute, I'd like to get hold of Linda Riggs and tear her hair out by the roots."

"Why didn't you do it then?" demanded excited Bess, and at this query even Walter, who had been more incensed than any of the girls at the insolent speech of Linda's, had to laugh.

"Yes, I would look pretty, wouldn't I?" laughed Nan, all her wrath vanishing on the instant, although her dislike of purse-proud Linda was more real than ever, "announcing my arrival in Jacksonville by a street fight?"

"You would look pretty any way—even pulling Linda's hair out," laughed Walter in her ear.

"Please don't be foolish, Walter," returned Nan loftily, at which, for some unaccountable reason, Walter only chuckled the more.

The speech and the chuckle troubled Nan. It seemed in some ridiculous fashion to bear out the silly things Bess had said about her and Walter earlier in the trip.

She forgot all about her perplexity a few moments later, however, when Walter helped Nan and Bess and Grace into the roomy tonneau of his big car, put Rhoda in the front seat, squeezed himself in behind the wheel, and started the motor.

"Well, how do you like Jacksonville, girls?" he called back to them as the machine glided easily forward. "As good as Tillbury, is it?" he added, with a glance at Nan and Bess.

"Not nearly," answered Bess loyally, although in her heart she knew that they could put two or three Tillburys in Jacksonville and never miss them.

The girls had known in a rather vague way that Jacksonville was a big place, but they had never expected to see anything like the bustling, thriving, wide-awake city they now drove through.

"Why, it is almost as noisy and crowded as New York," said Bess, wide-eyed, as Walter skilfully threaded his way through the heavy traffic. "And we thought that was simply awful. Walter, please be careful."

"Don't worry," Walter sang back, grazing the rear wheel of another machine by the very narrowest margin possible. "If we did hit anything, we wouldn't be the ones to get hurt. This old bus could stop an express train."

"Maybe it could," retorted Bess. "But please try it some time when you are alone."

"Don't mind him," said Grace, with her quiet smile. "You know Walter never does all he says."

"Don't I though——" Walter was beginning, when his sister cut him off by turning eagerly to Nan and Bess.

"We're stopping at the Hampton," she said, the Hampton being one of the largest and most important of all the large and important hotels in Jacksonville. "Mother has engaged a perfectly lovely room for you girls. Rhoda and I room together. It is just for one night, you know, for we are going to take the train for Palm Beach to-morrow morning."

"Then," cried Nan, happily, "we shall have all the rest of to-day to do as we please in."

"What bliss," breathed Bess. "Walter, you are going to be a perfect angel, aren't you, and take us for a lovely long, long ride?"

"At your service, fair damsel," said Walter gallantly. "We were planning that anyway," he went on to explain. "Mother and dad thought they would like to come along, too."

"More bliss," cried Bess, adding, as a cloud suddenly darkened her face: "I do hope we don't run across Linda any more. I declare, if I ever hear her say another word against you, Nancy Sherwood, I shall just have to kill her, that's all."