“Delicious!” responded Mrs. Albright.

“As good as I ever tasted!” declared Miss Major.

Miss Castlevaine nibbled hers for a moment longer before she spoke.

“My cousin goes automobiling a great deal,” she said, “and she makes her own cream—­solid cream it is, too!—­and she has something that she puts it in so that she can slice it off as she wants it.  It keeps ice cold for an indefinite time.”

“I have heard of such contrivances,” said Mrs. Albright politely.

“No cream could be better than this,” asserted Miss Major confidently.

Miss Castlevaine drew her lips into a smirk.

“Trust the Colonel for buying the best of everything!” went on Miss Major.  “What a man he is!  I wish he were one of the directors of the June Holiday Home.”

Miss Castlevaine’s face stiffened into an expression of superiority, as if she could divulge things detrimental to the Colonel if she wished.  But nobody appeared to regard her, and the cars jogged on,

Mrs. Adlerfeld, meanwhile, wore a look of saintly rapture.

Polly turned to say, “Isn’t the air nice this morning?”

“Here it is beautiful!” smiled the little Swedish woman.  “I have lots o’ joy!”

Colonel Gresham threw her an admiring glance.  “Glad you like it,” he said.

“Oh, I like it very!” she responded.  “I hope it didn’t tired you to drive him.”

“Not a bit!” he laughed.

“It looks more play as work,” she smiled.

He nodded brightly back to her, and then turned to Polly.  His tone was too low to carry to the seat behind.

“Why didn’t you tell me what a charming little woman we had with us?”

“Isn’t she sweet!” beamed Polly.  “Didn’t you ever meet her before?”

“Never!  I’m going to invite her to ride with me—­all alone, just to hear her talk!”

Polly chuckled.  “I wish you would,” she told him.

“She’d go, wouldn’t she?”

“Of course!  Why not?”

“I’ll warrant that sour-looking elephant in the back car wouldn’t!” laughed the Colonel.  “She’s that kind!”

“Oh!  I guess you mean Miss Castlevaine.  She’s the biggest one there is.  But she is very nice—­sometimes.”

“The times are few and far between, aren’t they?” he twinkled.

Polly laughed, but said apologetically, “She’s been pleasant to me.”

“She ought to be; but over at the Tenneys’ she looked as if she’d like to be somewhere else.  She seemed to keep on the edge of things.”

“She doesn’t always come in with the rest—­feels a little above some of them.  She is very proud of her Russian ancestry.  Her mother or grandmother was a duchess.”

“I thought she was proud of something,” observed the Colonel, “and it couldn’t be her good looks.”

“I think you are pretty hard on her,” protested Polly.

“Am I?” he smiled.  “Is she a particular friend of yours?  You’ll have to excuse me.”