"Oh, I say!" murmured the youthful automobile driver.
But Nan paid little attention to him. Having engaged him for the trip she hustled Bess and the baggage into his car without another word to him. Finally she leaped in, too, and banged the door of the tonneau.
"There! we're all ready," she said to the boy.
"Oh--well--if you say so," he murmured, and obediently cranked up and then stepped into the car himself.
"Say!" whispered Nan to Bess. "He's an awfully slow thing, isn't he? I don't see how he makes any money tooling people around in this auto."
"What's bothering _me_," whispered Bess, "is how we're going to pay him?
I haven't but twenty cents left. You know I bought candy on the train, beside that lunch."
"Not having wasted my money in riotous living," laughed Nan, "I can pay him all right."
The automobile whisked through the streets of the lower town in a few moments. They passed the lumbering 'bus with a scornful toot of the horn. In the suburbs they went even faster, although they were climbing the bluff all the time.
Lakeview Hall was alight now, and as they approached it between the great granite posts at the foot of the private driveway it looked more friendly.
A honk of the automobile-horn in notification of their approach, and immediately the cluster of incandescent lights under the reflector on the great front porch blazed into life. The wide entrance to the Hall, and all the vicinity, was radiantly illumined.
"Goodness!" ejaculated Nan. "I guess they do meet us with a brass band!"
For, with shouts of welcome, and a great flutter of frocks and ribbons, a troop of girls ran out of the Hall to welcome the newcomers.
"Here she is, girls!"
"Walter's the boy to do an errand right!"
"Weren't we the thoughtful bunch to send him after you?"
"Hey, Linda! we're going to have the same old room, Mrs. Cupp says."
The automobile came to a stop. The boy driver drawled:
"Some mistake, girls. I didn't see Linda Riggs at all. But here's a couple of new ones."
Bess had uttered a horrified gasp; but Nan was almost convulsed with laughter. She could usually appreciate the funny side of any situation; and to her mind this most certainly was funny!
It was plain that Linda Riggs was popular enough with some of her schoolmates to have them welcome her with special eclat. They had engaged this boy with the automobile to meet her at the station.
In place of Linda, arriving in the motor car, Nan and Bess had usurped her place; while even now the old 'bus was rumbling up the driveway with Linda inside.
"Goodness! who can they be?" remarked one of the girls, staring at Nan and Bess.
The former was quite composed as, with her own and Bess Harley's possessions about her on the lower of the four broad steps leading up to the veranda, she drew out her purse to pay the boy for the trip from the station.
"How much?" she asked him, without observing the surprised group in her rear.
"Why--I----It's nothing," stammered the young chauffeur.
"Oh, yes it is!" exclaimed Nan. "Of course you have some regular charge--even if you were not there at the station just to meet _us_."
"No--o, I don't," he declared. "There's nothing to pay."
"But there _must_ be!" cried Nan, a little wildly. "Surely you run a public car?"
"No. This is my father's car," admitted the boy, whom Nan now saw was a very good looking boy and very well dressed. "I was just down there to meet a friend----"
"Yes, and I don't see how you missed her, Walter," interrupted the girl behind Nan, and who had spoken before. "For here is Linda now, in Charley's old 'bus."
"Oh my!" murmured Bess.
Nan began to feel great confusion herself. It was not so funny, after all!
"Why--why, then you do _not_ have this car for hire?" she asked.
"No, ma'am," said the boy, meekly. He was looking at Nan Sherwood admiringly, for she made a very pretty picture standing there in the strong glow of the electric light. "But I didn't mind bringing you up--not at all."
"Oh!" gasped Nan.
"You are an awful chump, Walter," observed the girl who had spoken before. "Grace said you could do an errand right; but it seems you're quite as big a dunce as your sister."
"Grace is not a dunce, Cora Courtney!" exclaimed the boy, with some show of spirit, as he started his car, not having shut off his engine. "Good night," he said to Nan, and was gone around the curve of the drive as Charley brought his lazy horses to a halt before the door.
"Here I am, girls!" cried Linda Riggs, putting her head out of the 'bus window. Then she saw Nan and Bess standing on the steps of the portico, and she demanded involuntarily:
"How did those two girls get here ahead of me?"
CHAPTER IX
THE RED-HAIRED GIRL
"Well! I must say it's a good joke on you, Linda," said the tall girl, called Cora Courtney, in response to Miss Riggs' observation.
"What do you mean?" snapped the railroad magnate's daughter.
"Why, they came up from the station in the auto we girls sent after you.
You know it's against the rules for us to go down into the town so late, so we couldn't send a delegation for you; but that little Grace Mason said her brother would bring you up."
"Walter Mason!" exclaimed Linda, hopping out of the old 'bus. "Is that who was driving that car?"
"Yes. That was Walter. And Walter is as big a dunce as his sister,"
declared Cora, crossly. "He went right by you and brought up these two girls."
Linda's face was very much flushed. That she had overreached herself in this matter, taught the obstinate girl nothing. She had deliberately misinformed the 'bus driver, when she told him there were no other girls on the train, and had hurried him away from the station.