Jacksonville. "Mother has engaged a perfectly lovely room for you girls.
Rhoda and I room together. It is just for one night, you know, for we
are going to take the train for Palm Beach to-morrow morning."

"Then," cried Nan, happily, "we shall have all the rest of to-day to do
as we please in."

"What bliss," breathed Bess. "Walter, you are going to be a perfect
angel, aren't you, and take us for a lovely long, long ride?"

"At your service, fair damsel," said Walter gallantly. "We were planning
that anyway," he went on to explain. "Mother and dad thought they would
like to come along, too."

"More bliss," cried Bess, adding, as a cloud suddenly darkened her face:
"I do hope we don't run across Linda any more. I declare, if I ever hear
her say another word against you, Nancy Sherwood, I shall just have to
kill her, that's all."

"Well, I must say I do wish she would stay home where she belongs," said
Nan with a troubled frown. "Wherever we go she seems sure to turn up and
spoil everything--or try to. I wonder if Cora is with her," she added.
"I didn't see her at the dock."

"Humph, you don't think she would be at the dock, do you?" asked Walter,
joining in the conversation. "Cora is a regular lady's maid to Linda
now, so Grace says. She must be a funny kind of girl to stand for that
sort of thing."

"Oh, Cora isn't so bad," said Nan. "I imagine she would like to break
away from Linda, but she doesn't know just how to do it. Is this where
we get out, Walter?" she asked, as the car slowed down before a building
that looked more like a palace than a hotel.

"This is where we get out," replied Walter, jumping from his seat and
running around to open the door for the girls. "Right this way, ladies.
Follow me and you'll wear diamonds. Here, boy!" he spoke to a loitering
colored boy who stood at the hotel entrance. "Carry these grips up to
three-twenty. The hat boxes, too. I suppose you want the hat boxes," he
said, turning to the girls with a grin.

"Well, I should say!" replied Bess. "Neither Nan nor I would ever smile
again if we should lose one of those hats. Would we, Nan?"

But Nan was looking behind her with startled eyes and never even heard
her friend's question.

"Walter!" she cried, grasping the boy's arm and pointing excitedly down
the street, "do you see those men over there getting out of that taxi?
Quick! They are turning into that hotel."

"The little fat fellow and the long, thin man?" asked Wal