The same thought clouded the bright faces of Mollie, Grace and Bab.

“We have hardly seen you at all, Miss Sallie,” Grace lamented, taking Miss Sarah Stuart’s plump, white hand in her own.  “We have been the centre of so much excitement ever since you arrived in Washington.”

“Must we go, Father?” Ruth entreated.

“I am afraid we must, Daughter,” Mr. Stuart answered, with a half anxious and half cheerful twinkle in his eye.

“Then it’s Chicago for me!” sighed Ruth.

“And Kingsbridge for the rest of us!” echoed the other three girls.

“Ruth cannot very well travel home alone,” Mr. Stuart remonstrated, looking first at Barbara, then at Mollie and Grace, and winking solemnly at Miss Sallie.

“Don’t tease the child, Robert,” Miss Sallie remonstrated.

“Aren’t you and Aunt Sallie going home with me, Father?” Ruth queried, too much surprised for further questioning.

“No, Ruth,” Mr. Stuart declared.  “You seem to have concluded to return to
Chicago.  But your Aunt Sallie and I are on our way to Kingsbridge, New
Jersey, to pay a visit to Mrs. Mollie Thurston at Laurel Cottage.  Mrs.
Thurston wrote inviting us to visit her before we returned to the West. 
But, of course, if you do not wish to go with us, Daughter—.”

Mr. Stuart had no chance to speak again.  For the four girls surrounded him, plying him with questions, with exclamations.  They were all laughing and talking at once.

“It’s too good to be true, Father!” cried Ruth.

CHAPTER XXIV

HOME AT LAUREL COTTAGE

Mrs. Thurston stood on the front porch of her little cottage, looking out in the gathering dusk.  Back of her the lights twinkled gayly.  A big wood fire crackled in the sitting-room and shone through the soft muslin curtains.  A small maid was busily setting the table for supper in the dinning room, and there was a delicious smell of freshly baked rolls coming through the kitchen door.  On the table stood a great dish of golden honey and a pitcher of rich milk.  Mrs. Thurston had not forgotten, in two years, the favorite supper of her friend, Robert Stuart.

It was a cold night, but she could not wait indoors.  She had gathered up a warm woolen shawl of a delicate lavender shade, and wrapped it about her head and shoulders, looking not unlike the gracious spirit of an Autumn twilight as she lingered to welcome the travelers home.  She was thinking of all that had happened since the day that Bab had stopped Ruth’s runaway horses.  She was recalling how much Mr. Stuart had done for her little girls in the past two years.  “He could not have been kinder to Mollie and Barbara, if they had been his own daughters,” thought pretty Mrs. Thurston, with a blush.

But did she not hear the ever-welcome sound of a friendly voice?  Was not Mr. Bubble calling to her out of the darkness?  Surely enough his two great shining eyes now appeared at the well-known turn in the road.  A few moments later Mrs. Thurston was being tempestuously embraced by the “Automobile Girls.”