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The Automobile Girls Along the Hudson: or, Fighting Fire in Sleepy Hollow
The Automobile Girls Along the Hudson; Or, Fighting Fire in Sleepy Hollow
CHAPTER I – THE UNEXPECTED ALWAYS HAPPENS
“I think I’d make a pretty good housemaid,” said Barbara, on her knees, energetically polishing the floor of the cottage parlor.
“Only housemaids don’t wear gloves and all-over aprons and mobcaps,” replied Mollie.
“And they don’t protect their skins from dust with cold cream,” added Barbara, teasingly. “Do they, Molliekins?”
“Oh well,” replied Mollie, “duty and beauty rhyme, and every woman ought to try and keep her looks, according to the beauty pages in all the papers.”
“Poor old Molliekins!” exclaimed her sister. “Crowsfeet and gray hair at fifteen!”
“Going on sixteen,” corrected Mollie, as she gave a finishing rub to the mahogany center table, a relic of more prosperous days, and flourished an old, oily stocking that made an excellent polisher. “But the papers do say that automobiling is very harmful to the complexion and the face should be protected by layers of cold cream and powder, and a veil on top of that.”
“I’m willing to take the chance,” laughed Barbara, “if ever I get another one.”
“I suppose Ruth is so busy getting ready for her six weeks’ trip abroad that she won’t have much time for her ‘bubble’ this August,” observed Mollie. “But, dear knows, we can’t complain. There never was a rich girl who knew how to make other people happy as well as she does. Sometimes I think she is really a fairy princess, disguised as a human being, who is just gratifying her desire to do nice things for girls like us.”
“No, she is no fairy,” commented Barbara. “That is why we love her so. She is just a jolly, nice girl and as human as anybody. When she asked us to go to Newport it was because she really wanted us. She has often told me, since, that she had been planning the trip for months, but the girls she knew were not exactly the kind who would have fallen into such a scheme. Gladys Le Baron would never have done, you see, at that time, because she always wanted Harry Townsend hanging about.”
Harry Townsend, our readers will recall, appeared in a former volume of this series, “The Automobile Girls at Newport.” He was the famous youth known to the police as “The Boy Raffles,” whose mysterious thefts were the puzzle of the society world. It was Barbara Thurston, by her grit and intelligence, who finally brought the criminal to justice, though not before Newport had been completely bewildered by a number of inexplicable jewelry robberies.