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[Illustration: The Girls Sat On the Broad Piazza.]




THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT PALM BEACH

OR

PROVING THEIR METTLE UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES

By

LAURA DENT CRANE

  Author of The Automobile Girls at Newport, The Automobile
  Girls in the Berkshires, The Automobile Girls Along the
  Hudson, The Automobile Girls at Chicago, etc.

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA

HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY




Copyright, 1913, by

Howard E. Altemius

PRINTED IN U. S. A.




CONTENTS

        I. The Land of Dreams                            7
       II. A West Indian Squall                         21
      III. The Fair Unknown                             32
       IV. The Compact                                  43
        V. The Daughter of Mrs. De Lancey Smythe        51
       VI. The Countess Sophia                          64
      VII. Tea in the Cocoanut Grove                    75
     VIII. The Warning                                  87
       IX. A Case of Mistaken Identity                  95
        X. The Secret Signals                          105
       XI. Wheels Within Wheels                        113
      XII. Maud Refuses to Be Rescued                  123
     XIII. A Surprise Party                            132
      XIV. The Plot Thickens                           147
       XV. Caught Napping                              154
      XVI. Welcome and Unwelcome Guests                166
     XVII. The Midnight Intruder                       179
    XVIII. The Water Fete                              189
      XIX. Red Dominos                                 200
       XX. Conclusion                                  204




The Automobile Girls at Palm Beach




CHAPTER I

THE LAND OF DREAMS


"I don't believe anything could be more lovely than this," exclaimed
Mollie Thurston, leaning back in a wicker chair on the piazza of one of
the largest hotels at Palm Beach.

"Right you are!" replied her friend, Ruth Stuart, as she gazed across
the still blue waters of Lake Worth dotted with pleasure boats. "I can't
decide whether I should like to ride in the automobile, or sail, or just
sit in the cocoanut grove and listen to the music. Life seems so easy
under a blue sky like this, and there are so many things to do that it
is hard to make a choice."

"What do people usually do at this hour?" Grace Carter asked. "A woman I
talked with on the train told me there was a programme of amusements for
every hour at Palm Beach."

"Well, my dear, you have only to gaze about you and see for yourself. It
is now high noon," answered Ruth, consulting her watch.

Grace glanced quickly about her. All along the broad piazza, and under
awnings on the lawn, a gay company of men, women and young people were
sipping delicious iced fruit drinks in tall, thin glasses.

"It is undoubtedly the witching hour for pineapple lemonades," said
Ruth. "And we must be in the fashion immediately. Papa," she called to
her father, who was immersed in the pages of a New York newspaper
several days old, "you are not doing your duty by us. We are getting
awfully thirsty."

Mr. Stuart, clad in white, and looking the picture of comfort, smiled
lazily over his paper at his daughter. "Order what you like, my dear. Am
I not always at the command of the 'Automobile Girls'? What do you wish,
little lady?" he asked, turning to Barbara Thurston, who had been lost
in a day-dream and had heard nothing of the conversation.

"I haven't any wish," responded Barbara. "I am too happy to be troubled
with wishes."

"Then suppose I wish for you, Bab?" suggested Ruth. "Go back to your own
sweet dreams. I'll wake you when the wish comes true."

Presently the four girls were sipping their fruit lemonades like the
rest of the world at Palm Beach. On the breeze the sound of music was
wafted to them from a morning concert in the distance.

"Where is Aunt Sallie?" Ruth suddenly asked, again interrupting her
father's reading. "This place has bewitched me so that I have forgotten
even my beloved aunt. This is the land of dreams, I do believe. We are
all spirits from some happy world."

"Here comes your spirit aunt," returned Mr. Stuart, smiling. "She has
evidently been spirited away by some other friendly spirits."

The girls laughed as they saw the substantial figure of Miss Sallie
Stuart strolling down the piazza. She was walking between two other
persons, one a tall, middle-aged man with dark hair slightly tinged with
gray, the other a young woman. They were all three talking animatedly.

"Girls, look!" exclaimed Ruth, in suppressed excitement. "Aunt Sallie is
with that Maud Warren. You remember we met her at Lenox, Bab, and she
tried to ride you down in the famous race. Delightful creature--to keep
away from." Ruth gave a contemptuous sniff, then added. "That nice
looking man must be her father."

"She looks as haughty as ever, and then some more," said Mollie
aggressively.

The girls giggled softly, then straightened their faces for the trio was
almost upon them, and it was not safe to indulge in further
conversation.

After seeing that his charges were supplied with lemonade, Mr. Stuart
had returned to his paper.

"Robert," broke in Miss Sallie's dignified voice, "this is Mr. Warren
and his daughter Miss Warren. They----"

But at the first word Mr. Stuart had risen and the two men were
enthusiastically shaking hands.

"Why, Warren," exclaimed Mr. Stuart, "I had no idea that you were in
this part of the world. The last time I saw you, you were ranching out
in Idaho."

"Quite true," replied Mr. Warren, smiling, "but that was ten years ago.
A great many things have happened since then." He sighed and looked out
over the blue lake. "Mrs. Warren died the next year," he said slowly.
"Maud and I are alone."

"I am deeply sorry to hear of your great loss," sympathized Mr. Stuart
and his fine face saddened. He too had known that loss.

Turning to Maud who had been exchanging rather distant greetings with
the four girls, he said pleasantly. "So this is Maud. She was a little
girl in short dresses when last I saw her. How these children do grow
up."

Maud smiled frigidly and for the fraction of a second allowed her hand
to touch that of Mr. Stuart. "One must grow up some time, you know," she
murmured.

"I should like to stay eighteen forever," exclaimed Ruth, with
enthusiasm.

"Would you indeed?" remarked Maud Warren, raising her eyebrows. "How
odd!"

There was a brief silence. The four girls stared straight ahead and
tried to control their desire to laugh. During their stay at Lenox the
year before the circumstances of which having been fully told in the
"Automobile Girls in the Berkshires," they had not been impressed with
Maud Warren, on account of her disagreeable and overbearing manner. But
the blase air that she now affected, was in their candid eyes extremely
ridiculous, and her remark to Ruth had filled them all with unseemly
mirth.

Maud Warren, however, serenely unconscious of what was passing through
their minds, sank into a wicker chair, and deliberately turning her back
upon the "Automobile Girls," began a conversation with Miss Sallie.

The "Automobile Girls" dated their organization back to almost two years
before, when Barbara Thurston had bravely stopped a runaway team of
horses driven by Ruth Stuart, a rich western girl, summering in
Kingsbridge, the home town of the Thurstons.

A warm friendship had sprung up between Ruth Stuart, Barbara and Mollie
Thurston, that resulted in a journey to Newport in Ruth's red motor car,
familiarly known as Mr. A. Bubble. Grace Carter, a Kingsbridge girl, had
been asked to complete the quartette of adventurous damsels, while Miss
Sallie Stuart, Ruth's aunt had gone along as chaperon.

After a series of remarkable events their trip ended with the capture of
a society "cracksman," known to the police as the "Boy Raffles." The
"Automobile Girls" then returned to Kingsbridge, where several weeks
later, Mr. A. Bubble once more bore them away to the heart of the
Berkshires. There they spent a delightful month, in a little log cabin,
roughing it. In "The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires," the story of
the little Indian "ghost" that haunted "Lost Man's Trail," and who
afterwards turned out to be an Indian princess is charmingly related.

After a winter of hard study, the "Automobile Girls" were again
reunited, and in "The Automobile Girls Along the Hudson," their journey
through the beautiful Sleepy Hollow Country is narrated. The eventful
weeks spent in the ancestral home of Major Ten Eyck, an old friend of
Miss Sallie Stuart's, ending with their brave fight to save the
beautiful old house from destruction by forest fires, made the
"Automobile Girls" stand out as true heroines.

The best work since their initial adventure, however, had been done in
Chicago, and the record of it, set down in "The Automobile Girls at
Chicago," was not yet three months old. While on a holiday visit to
Ruth, at her Chicago home, they had been the guests of the Presbys,
relatives of the Stuarts, at their country place "Treasureholme." Owing
to imprudent speculation in wheat, both Mr. Stuart and Mr. Presby had
become heavily involved and were facing financial ruin. Through the
efforts of Barbara Thurston, aided by the other "Automobile Girls" the
rich treasure, buried by one of the ancestors, was discovered in time to
save the Presby estate.

Before leaving Chicago, Mr. Stuart had promised his daughter and her
friends a sojourn at Palm Beach during the month of March. Now the
"Automobile Girls" had actually arrived in the "Land of Flowers" eager
for any pleasure that sunny Florida might yield them.

The four young girls were unusually quiet as they sat idly looking out
over the water. Maud Warren's arrival had cast a chill over them.

It had been an enchanted land, Barbara reflected rather resentfully, now
the enchantment was broken.

Ruth sat covertly taking stock of Miss Warren's elaborate white lace
gown and wondering why young girls ever insisted on aping so called
"society" fashions. While Mollie and Grace speculated as to how long a
call the Warrens were going to make.

Maud, totally oblivious that she had been weighed in the balance by four
stern young judges, and found wanting, languidly conversed with Miss
Stuart, in her most grown-up manner.

"Have you met the De Lancey Smythes, Miss Stuart?" she drawled. "They
are too utterly charming. Mrs. De Lancey Smythe belongs to an old, old
Southern family. She is a widow, with one daughter, Marian, a most
delightful young woman. It was only through them that I was persuaded to
come here."

"Indeed," replied Miss Sallie. "We arrived yesterday. Therefore we have
met no one, as yet."

"Of course not," agreed Maud. "You really must meet them!"

"I should be pleased to meet any friends of yours, Miss Warren," replied
Miss Stuart courteously.

"By the way, Stuart," said Mr. Warren, "what do you say to a sail in my
launch, this afternoon? I should like to entertain some one besides the
De Lancey Smythes. They are too fine for me. I am just a plain blunt
man, and can't stand too many extra frills. Maud, see to it that you
don't invite them. I absolutely refuse to be bothered with them,
to-day."

Maud flushed hotly at her father's contemptuous allusion to the De
Lancey Smythes. But restraining her feelings she turned to Miss Stuart
with a forced attempt at graciousness.

"Won't you come for a sail? It will be awfully good of you."

"We should be delighted, I am sure," replied Mr. Stuart, looking gravely
at Maud. He then turned a compassionate gaze toward his friend, Mr.
Warren. "That is, I mean we shall go with you, provided my sister has
made no other plans."

"Are you sure your launch won't pitch, Mr. Warren?" inquired Miss
Stuart.

"I am perfectly certain, Miss Stuart," replied the millionaire. "The
lake is like a mill pond to-day. There is not a ripple on it."

While they had been making their plans for the afternoon, a man had been
leaning idly against the railing of the piazza. He now strolled quietly
away, without having appeared to notice any one of them, or to have
overheard any of their conversation.

But Barbara had observed him. She had an unquenchable curiosity
concerning faces. And this man appeared indefinably interesting.

Was it the foreign cut of his dark suit, conspicuous among the crowds of
white ones worn by most of the men at Palm Beach? Or was it his strong,
clean-shaven face with its rather heavy bull-dog jaw, its square chin,
and keen gray eyes, a little too narrow for Bab's taste? Bab did not
know, then. But she took in the man's whole expression, and the adverse
opinion she silently formed, at that time, she never had occasion to
change.

As the party was about to separate for luncheon two women appeared in a
nearby doorway and stood looking up and down the piazza.

"Oh, there are dear Marian and her mother!" cried Maud, hurrying over to
greet her friends.

"Dear Mrs. De Lancey Smythe," exclaimed Maud, with a defiant look toward
her father, "I do so want you to go out with us in our launch this
afternoon. Won't you let me introduce some new friends to you, who are
going to sail with us?"

Mr. Warren turned red. A look of disappointment, verging on anger crept
into his good-natured brown eyes as his daughter deliberately defied
him.

The De Lancey Smythes glanced toward the Stuart party, with bored
indifference.

Mrs. De Lancey Smythe made some low-voiced remark to Maud who nodded her
head slightly. Whereupon mother and daughter moved toward Miss Stuart
with an air of haughty condescension.

Mrs. De Lancey Smythe might have been anywhere from thirty-five to
forty-five. She was tall, well-proportioned and a decided brunette. At a
glance one would have decided her to be very handsome, but close
observers would have noted a hard expression about the eyes and mouth
that completely destroyed the effect of beauty. As for her daughter,
Marian, she was a small, slender insignificant young woman who seemed
entirely overshadowed by her mother's personality.

Both mother and daughter were dressed perhaps a shade too elaborately
for good taste, and there was something about them that immediately
aroused a sense of vague disapproval in the minds of the Stuart party.

"Maud is always so thoughtful of her friends," murmured Mrs. De Lancey
Smythe, turning to Miss Sallie with well simulated appreciation. "She
knows how fond we are of sailing."

Miss Sallie looked sharply at the speaker. The De Lancey Smythes were
evidently unaware of Mr. Warren's animosity toward them. She was about
to frame some polite excuse for not going on the launch, hoping to thus
nip in the bud the proposed sail, when suddenly meeting Mr. Warren's
eyes, she saw an expression of entreaty in them that made her hesitate.

"I hope you and your 'Automobile Girls' will not disappoint me," he said
pleadingly.

"Thank you," responded Miss Stuart. "We shall be pleased to go."

With a formal bow to Mrs. De Lancey Smythe and her daughter, Miss Sallie
marshaled her little force and left the piazza.

"Very charming people," remarked Mrs. De Lancey Smythe, to Maud Warren,
after they had disappeared. But there was an unpleasant light in her
eyes, and a certain tightening of her lips that showed resentment at the
manner of her reception by the Stuart party.

"We shall be obliged to play our cards very carefully," she warned
Marian, when in the privacy of their own apartment. "That Miss Stuart
seems already inclined to be hostile. As for those girls----"

"I think they're the nicest looking girls I've seen for a long time.
Ever so much nicer than Maud Warren," exclaimed Marian.

"Hold your tongue," commanded her mother angrily. "Don't let me hear any
more remarks of that kind, or you'll have cause to regret them."

Marian relapsed into sulky silence. She knew her mother only too well.
Nevertheless she made up her mind to try honestly to make a good
impression upon the first girls with whom she had ever wished to be
friends.

Mr. Stuart and Mr. Warren did not at once follow their respective
charges in to luncheon, but sat down on a wide settee in one corner of
the piazza for a long talk. One topic of conversation followed another,
until at last Mr. Warren lowered his voice and said:

"Stuart, I am going to ask a favor of you because I need your help more
than I can say. You see," he went on, his face flushing painfully with
embarrassment, "I have tried to give my daughter the proper sort of
care. I have certainly spared no money in the effort. But what can
money, alone, do for a motherless girl?" His voice choked a little.
"Perhaps I should have married again, if only on Maud's account. But I
tell you, Bob, I couldn't. My wife's memory is still too dear to me. No
other woman has ever interested me." He paused a moment, then looked
away, while Mr. Stuart patted his shoulder sympathetically.

"And now," went on poor Mr. Warren, shaking his head sadly, "my girl has
fallen in with a lot of society people who are doing her more harm than
good--for instance, these people you have just seen are among the
number.