ded, as parents
will. In the next few days the matter was settled and hurried
preparations were begun.

More than once they had to pinch themselves to make sure they were not
dreaming. Palm Beach! Land of summer, land of flowers, land of beauty!
And they--Nan Sherwood and Bess Harley--were actually going to dwell for
a time in that earthly Paradise!

CHAPTER XIV

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Nan was really going to Palm Beach! She could scarcely realize her good
fortune.

Grace had written that some cousins who were to go had disappointed
them, so good accommodations were assured to Nan and Bess when they
reached Palm Beach.

Nan was up in her bedroom in the evening looking dreamily out of the
window and imagining she was already at the famous winter resort when
she gave a start.

Two men were slinking around, behind some trees on the opposite side of
the street! From time to time they gazed at the house as if looking for
somebody.

"The same men! What can it mean?"

Nan breathed the words to herself. She had seen these men before since
coming home from school. They had leered at her when on an errand to the
drugstore, and one of them had acted as if he wanted to speak to her
while she was at the depot asking for a timetable. But a man friend had
come up to greet her and the stranger had slunk away.

Nan's first impulse was to call her father and mother. But then she
hesitated. Why worry her parents, and especially her mother, when, after
all, it might mean little or nothing?

She looked again. Some men had come up the street. At sight of them the
two slinking ones shrank back and presently hurried away.

"I hope I never see them again," said the girl to herself. But this wish
was not to be gratified.

Yet the next day Nan gave the strange men hardly a thought. There were
so many things to be done in preparation for the great trip.

"It's not like going out to Rose Ranch, where any old thing was good
enough to wear," Nan confided to Bess. "We've got to look our best, on
Grace's account as well as our own."

"And Walter's," added Bess, and then Nan promptly threw a book at her
chum.

A day more, and then came the all-important time for departure.

"Oh, just to think of it! We are really and truly going!"

Nan was seated on an overturned suitcase on the porch of the little
"dwelling in amity." Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her to
keep her from jumping up and running off madly somewhe