“To-morrow we are going to ride in Miss Lord’s automobile,” she remarked.

Bub grunted.

“She says she can easily run it up to our door.  Do you believe that!”

“Why not?” he inquired.  “Don’t Will Morrison have a car?  It’s over there in the shed now.”

“Could it be used?” quietly asked Mary Louise, who had now strolled up behind the bench unperceived.

Bub turned a scowling face to her, but she was looking out across the bluff.  And she had broached a subject in which the boy was intensely interested.

“Thet thar car in there is a reg’lar hummer,” he asserted, waving the knife in one hand and the stick in the other by way of emphasis.  “Tain’t much fer looks, ye know, but looks cuts no figger with machinery, s’long’s it’s well greased.  On a hill, thet car’s a cat; on a level stretch, she’s a jack-rabbit.  I’ve seen Will Morrison take ’er ter Millbank an’ back in a hour—­jus’ one lonesome hour!”

“That must have been in its good days,” observed Mary Louise.  “The thing hasn’t any tires on it now.”

“Will takes the tires off ev’ry year, when he goes away, an’ puts ’em in the cellar,” explained Bub.  “They’s seven good tires down cellar now; I counted ’em the day afore ye come here.”

“In that case,” said Mary Louise, “if any of us knew how to drive we could use the car.”

“Drive?” said Bub scornfully.  “That’s nuth’n’.”

“Oh.  Do you know how?”

“Me?  I kin drive any car thet’s on wheels.  Two years ago, afore Talbot come, I used ter drive Will Morrison over t’ Millbank ev’ry week t’ catch the train; an’ brung the car home ag’in; an’ went fer Will when he come back.”

“You must have been very young, two years ago,” said Irene.

“Shucks.  I’m goin’ on fifteen this very minnit.  When I were ’leven I druv the Higgins car fer ’em an’ never hit the ditch once.  Young!  Wha’d’ye think I am—­a kid?”

So indignant had he become that he suddenly rose and slouched away, nor could they persuade him to return.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun with that boy, once we learn how to handle him,” predicted Irene, when the two girls had enjoyed a good laugh at Bub’s expense.  “He seems a queer mixture of simplicity and shrewdness.”

The next day Agatha Lord appeared in her big touring car and after lifting Irene in and making her quite comfortable on the back seat they rolled gayly away to Millbank, where they had lunch at the primitive restaurant, visited the post-office in the grocery store and amused themselves until the train came in and brought Peter Conant, who was loaded down with various parcels of merchandise Aunt Hannah had ordered.

The lawyer was greatly pleased to find a car waiting to carry him to the Lodge and after being introduced to Miss Lord, whose loveliness he could not fail to admire, he rode back with her in the front seat and left Mary Louise to sit inside with Irene and the packages.  Bill Coombs didn’t approve of this method of ruining his stage business and scowled at the glittering auto as it sped away across the plain to the mountain.