The Motor Girls on Waters Blue | Page 3

you. Go on, Bess. What is it? Has some one stolen your car, or have you discovered a new kind of chocolate candy? I wish I had some now; I'm simply starved! You have no idea how bracing and appetizing the air is. What was I telling you about?"
"Never mind, Cora. It's my turn. You can't guess what has happened."
"And I'm not going to try, for I know you're just dying to tell me. Go on. I'm listening," and Cora sat on a stool at the feet of her chum.
"Well, it would take too long to tell it all, but what would you say, if I went on a long sea voyage this winter?"
"What would I say? Why, my dear, I'd say that it was simply perfectly magnificent! It sounds like--like a wedding tour, almost. A sea voyage. Oh, Bess, do tell me!" and Cora leaned forward eagerly, expectantly. "Are you really going?"
"It seems so, yes. Belle and I shall have to go if papa carries out his plans, and takes mamma to the West Indies. You see it's like this. He has--"
A knock came at the door. Cora turned her head quickly, and called: "Come in!"
A maid entered, bearing on a silver server a note, the manila envelope of which proclaimed it as a telegraph message.
"Oh, a telegram!"' gasped Cora, and her fingers trembled, in spite of her, as she opened it.
She gave a hasty glance at the written words, and then cried:
"Oh, it was for mother, but the envelope had 'Miss Kimball' on it. However, it doesn't matter, and I'm glad I opened it first. Oh, dear!"
"Bad news?" asked Bess, softly.
"It's about my brother Jack," said Cora, and there was a sob in her voice. "He has suffered a nervous breakdown, and will have to leave college at once!"

CHAPTER II
MORE NEWS
"Oh, Cora!" murmured Bess, rising from, the chair, and it was with no easy effort that she did so, for she had allowed herself to sink back again into its luxurious depths. "Oh, Cora dear! Isn't that perfectly dreadful!"
Cora Kimball did not answer. She was staring at the fateful telegram, reading it over and over again; the words now meaningless to her. But she had grasped their import with the first swift glance. Jack was ill--in trouble.
Bess put her arms around her chum, and slipped one plump hand up on the tresses tangled by the wind on the motor ride.
"Can I do anything to help--your mother is she--"
"Of course!" exclaimed Cora with a sigh. "I must tell mother at once. Yes, she's at home, Bess. Will you--do you mind coming with me?"
"Of course not, my dear. I wouldn't think of letting you go alone to tell her. Is the telegram from jack himself?"
No, it's from Walter Pennington. Walter says a letter follows--special delivery."
"Oh, then you'll get it soon! Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think. Dear Walter is so good!"
"Isn't he?" agreed Cora, murmuringly. "I sha'n't worry so much about Jack, now that I know Wally is with him. Oh, but if he has to leave college--"
Cora did not finish. Together she and Bess left the library, seeking Mrs. Kimball, to impart to her the sudden and unwelcome news. And so, when there is a moment or two, during which nothing of chronicling interest is taking place, my dear readers may be glad of a little explanation regarding Cora Kimball and her chums, and also a word or two concerning the previous books of this series.
Cora Kimball was the real leader of the motor girls. She was, by nature, destined for such a position, and the fact that she, of all her chums, was the first to possess an automobile, added to her prestige. In the first volume of this series, entitled "The Motor Girls," I had the pleasure of telling how, amid many other adventures, Cora, and her chums, Bess and Belle Robinson, helped to solve the mystery of a twenty thousand dollar loss.
Cora, Bess and Belle were real girl chums, but they never knew all, the delights of chumship until they "went in" for motoring. Living in the New England town of Chelton, on the Chelton River, life had been rather hum-drum, until the advent of the "gasoline gigs" as Jack, Cora's brother, slangily dubbed them. Jack, with whose fortunes we shall concern ourselves at more length presently, had a car of his own--one strictly limited to two--a low-slung red and yellow racing car, "giddy and gaudy," Cora called it.
Later on, the Robinson twins also became possessed of an automobile, and then followed many delightful trips.
"The Motor Girls on a Tour," the second volume of the series, tells in detail of many surprising happenings, which were added to, and augmented, at "Lookout Beach."
Through New England the girls went, after their rather strenuous times at the