Just at this moment came a whirring sound from high in the air above them.  Looking up, they saw a dainty green monoplane, with widespread wings and whirring propeller, descending to earth.  An instant later the machine had come to a halt on the lawn, alighting as lightly as wind-blown gossamer.  In the machine was seated a pretty girl of about Peggy’s age, though rather stouter.  In harmony with the color of the machine she drove, the newly arrived girl aviator wore a green aviation costume, with a close-fitting motor bonnet.  From the beruffled edge of this some golden strands of hair had escaped, and waved above two laughing blue eyes.

“Hello, people!” she hailed, as the porch party hastily adjourned and ran to welcome her, “how’s that for a novice only recently out of the Mineola School?”

“Bess Marshall, you’re a wonder!” cried Peggy, embracing her; “the Dart is the prettiest little machine I’ve seen for a long time.”

“Isn’t it a darling,” agreed Bess warmly, “but, my! how I had to beg and pray dad before he would buy it for me.  He said that no daughter of his should ever go up in an aeroplane, much less drive one.  It wasn’t till I got him down at Mineola and persuaded him to take a ride himself that he consented to buying me my dear little Dart.”

She laid one daintily gloved hand on the steering wheel of the little monoplane and patted it affectionately.

“It’s pretty enough, but it wouldn’t fly very far,” commented Roy teasingly, “sort of aerial taxicab, I’d call it.”

“Is that so, Mr. Roy Prescott?  Well, I’d like you to know that the Dart could fly just as far and as fast as the Red Dragon or the Golden Butterfly.”

“Well, if you wanted to take a trip to North Carolina with us you’d have an opportunity to test that idea out,” laughed Peggy.

“A trip to North Carolina?  What do you mean?  Are you dreaming?”

“No, not even day-dreaming.”

Just then Miss Prescott, her gentle face wreathed in smiles, appeared at the door.

“Children! children!” she exclaimed, “what is all this?  Adjourn your discussion for a while and come in and have tea.”

While the happy group of young fliers are entering the pretty, old-fashioned house with its clustering roses and green-shuttered casements, let us relate a little more about the young personages to whose enthusiastic talk the reader has just listened.

Roy and Peggy Prescott were orphans living in the care of their aunt, Miss Prescott, the location of whose home on Long Island has already been described.  At school Roy had imbibed the aerial fever, and after many vicissitudes had built a fine monoplane, the Golden Butterfly, with which he had won a big money prize, besides encountering a series of extraordinary aerial adventures.  In these Peggy participated, and on more than one occasion was the means of materially aiding her brother out of difficulties.  All this part of their experiences was related in the first volume of this series, “The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship.”