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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
del