WASHINGTON***


E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team



THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT WASHINGTON

or, Checkmating the Plots of Foreign Spies

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, The Automobile Girls at Palm Beach, etc.

1913






[Illustration: A Fat Chinese Gentleman Stood Regarding Her.
(Frontispiece)]




CONTENTS

Chapter

       I. A Chance Meeting
      II. Cabinet Day in Washington
     III. Mr. Tu Fang Wu
      IV. At the Chinese Embassy
       V. Sub Rosa
      VI. The Arrest
     VII. Mollie's Temptation
    VIII. At the White House
      IX. Bab's Discovery
       X. The Confession
      XI. In Mr. Hamlin's Study
     XII. Barbara's Secret Errand
    XIII. A Foolish Girl
     XIV. "Grant No Favors!"
      XV. Bab Refuses to Grant a Favor
     XVI. Barbara's Unexpected Good Luck
    XVII. The White Veil
   XVIII. A Tangled Web or Circumstance
     XIX. Harriet in Danger
      XX. Foiled!
     XXI. The Discovery
    XXII. Oil on the Troubled Waters
   XXIII. Suspense and the Reward
    XXIV. Home at Laurel Cottage




CHAPTER I

A CHANCE MEETING


Barbara Thurston stood at the window of a large old-fashioned house,
looking out into Connecticut Avenue. It was almost dark. An occasional
light twinkled outside in the street, but the room in which Barbara was
stationed was still shrouded in twilight.

Suddenly she heard a curtain at the farther end of the drawing-room
rustle faintly.

Bab turned and saw a