Every one loved Isabel.
"Oh, you think so, do you?" asked her sister. "Jack never makes any mistakes apparent to Belle," she added with an arch glance at Cora, with whom she was riding on the front seat.
"Never mind," murmured Belle.
Mary listened to the talk with evident pleasure. She was not accustomed to this sort of perfectly frank jokes.
"There they are!" suddenly cried Cora as the Get There swerved into sight around the corner.
Jack, who was at the wheel of his car, with Walter beside him, swung in close to his sister"s machine.
"All right?" asked Jack, looking critically at Cora as she slowed up the big car, and noting her firm grip of the steering wheel.
"Fine and dandy!" exclaimed the girl, with the expression that makes that sort of slang a parody rather than a convenience.
"And if there aren"t Sid and Ida!" exclaimed Belle. "Seems to me we run into them wherever we go."
"As long as it"s only metaphorically and not mechanically speaking, it"s all right," observed Walter.
The yellow Streak glided smoothly along.
"Quite a parade," remarked Jack.
"Let"s make it a race," suggested Cora, her dark eyes flashing in antic.i.p.ation.
Jack glanced at Walter. The relations between him and Sid were rather strained. As for Ida--well, Ida was credited with "running after Walter," and the sentiment of lads toward such girls is too well known to need describing.
"Oh, yes! Do let us race!" chimed in Bess. "It would be such fun!"
"All right," agreed Jack. "That is, if Sid is, willing."
"Will you race, Sidney?" called Cora, before the occupants of the yellow car had had time to greet the others.
"Yes, certainly," he a.s.sented. "I would like nothing better."
"Then we"ll have to handicap the girls," suggested Walter. "They have by far the fastest machine."
"But it"s brand new," objected Cora, "and isn"t tuned up yet, as the two runabouts are. Besides, look who we are--girls."
"Very charming ones, I"m sure," said Sid quickly, but, somehow, his voice did not ring true.
"Handicap," spoke Walter. "I suppose it"s right, but you see--er--we fellows could--" He was floundering about for a way of saying that the girls should not be penalized by giving the drivers of the two runabouts a start. For, in spite of their small size and less power the runabouts were speedy cars. It seemed as if Walter did not want to take the obviously fair advantage due him.
"Oh, no," declared Cora. "We"ll let you handicap us all you wish.
We are willing to test the Whirlwind on its merits."
"I should think so," sneered Ida, and then she turned disdainfully away, as if the landscape held more of interest for her than did the details of a race.
"Who is that forward girl?" asked quiet Mary of Bess.
"Ida Giles," was the whispered reply.
"She looked at me as if I did not belong in a motor car," went on the little milliner, with that quick perception acquired by business experience.
"Well, she doesn"t belong in the one she"s in," retorted Bess kindly. "I guess you imagine she meant something like that. Ida is not really mean. She is merely thoughtless."
"That"s the very meanest kind of meanness," insisted Mary, "for, when folks do a thing through thoughtlessness they do not know enough to be careful next time."
Bess smiled to a.s.sure Mary that the milliner"s model was on an equal footing with the girls in the Whirlwind, at all events.
"Line up!" called Jack. "Get ready for the race. We"ll not insist on a handicap for you, Cora."
Sid sent his car directly to the middle of the road, the very best place.
"Better let the touring car go there," suggested Walter in as even a tone as he could command. "It will need lots of room, and the road"s not very wide."
"That"s right," added Jack. "A runabout can go on either side, then."
"I don"t know," began Sid. "Cora ought to beat, and yet with two fellows driving against her--"
"Oh, if it"s a matter of girls," almost sneered Ida, "I"ll drive the Streak."
"Good idea!" hurriedly spoke Jack. "That will "make the match even.
Suppose we take a girl to drive our car, Walter?"
Walter glanced rather ruefully at his companion.
"Why--er--yes," he drawled. "Suppose we take--"
"Bess," finished Jack, quickly. "She knows considerable about a car, and she"s driven this one."
Somehow, the idea of having Bess as a rival to Ida suggested fun to Jack.
"Now we have it," went on Cora"s brother, as Bess alighted from the Whirlwind and entered the Get There. "Are we all ready?"
"Where"s Walter going?" asked Cora, for he had given up his seat to Jack, who moved to make room for Bess. Mary, Cora and Belle were in the touring car.
"I guess I"d better get into the big machine,", decided Walter.
"Three such pretty girls in it all alone are an unequal division of beauty and talent--the last for myself, of course."
He moved toward the Whirlwind. Ida frowned. She had rather hoped to have matters so arranged that Walter would be with her. Cora saw the frown and laughed merrily as Walter slipped into the seat beside her.
"I suppose you think you are going to do the mascoting for this car," she said.
"At your service, mademoiselle," replied Walter, trying to bow, a politeness rather difficult of accomplishment in a small seat. "Do anything you like, but don"t run me into the ditch. My watch is deadly afraid of ditches."
Then Cora introduced Mary, the little model blushing refreshingly.
Walter made a mental note of Mary"s eyes, and the soft tints, like the bloom of a peach, in her cheeks. The two other girls were not slow to observe his interest. It was odd, thought Cora, how boys go in for the romantic sort--and models!