better let Colonel Marchand and Jennie have this honeymoon
car," Ruth said doubtfully.

"Humph!" her chum observed, "I begin to believe it will be just as much a
honeymoon car with you and Tom in it as with that other couple. 'Bless
you, my children!'"

She ran back to the big car with this saucy statement. Tom grinned,
slipped behind the wheel, and started the roadster slowly.

"It must be," he observed in his inimitable drawl, "that Sis has noticed
that I'm fond of you, Ruthie."

"Quite remarkable," she rejoined cheerfully. "But the war isn't over yet,
Tommy-boy. And if our lives are spared we've got to finish our educations
and all that. Why, Tommy, you are scarcely out of short pants, and I've
only begun to put my hair up."

"Jimminy!" he grumbled, "you do take all the starch out of a fellow. Now
tell me how you got gas. What happened?"

Everybody has been to Boston, or expects to go there some time, so it is
quite immaterial what happened to the party while at the Hub. They only
remained two days, anyway, then they started off alongshore through the
pleasant old towns that dot the coast as far as Cape Ann.

They saw the ancient fishing ports of Marblehead, Salem, Gloucester and
Rockport, and then came back into the interior and did not see salt water
again until they reached Newburyport at the mouth of the Merrimac.

The weather remained delightfully cool and sunshiny after that heavy
tempest they had suffered in the hills, and they reached Portsmouth and
remained at a hotel for three days when it rained again. The young folks
chafed at this delay, but Aunt Kate declared that a hotel room was restful
after jouncing over all sorts of roads for so long.

"They never will build a car easy enough for auntie," Jennie Stone
declared. "I tell pa he must buy some sort of airship for us----"

"Never!" cried Aunt Kate in quick denial. "Whenever I go up in the air it
will be because wings have sprouted on my shoulder blades. And I should
not call an aeroplane easy riding, in any case."

"At least," grumbled Tom, "you can spin along without any trouble with
country constables, and _that's_ a blessing."

For on several occasions they had had arguments with members of the police
force, in one case helping to support a justice and a constable by paying
a fine.

They did not travel on Sunday, however, when the constables reap most of
their harvest, so they really had little to complain of in that direction.
Nor did