n trust you," the old lady said, not smiling, but looking a
bit less stern.

"Now, Minturn, we'll _try_ to reach the hotel, sometime before dark!"
she said curtly.

Puffing and whirring the big automobile started off up the road, the old
lady sitting stern and erect, as if she thought her driver needed
watching, and she was determined to keep a sharp eye upon him.

"Why, how queer!" said Dorothy. "She didn't even say 'good-bye,' or
'good-morning.' Perhaps she was very tired, and forgot,"--then after a
moment she added, "but my beautiful mamma _never_ forgets."

She went back to the pretty spot where she had been reading, and sitting
down, opened the book, but she could not keep her mind upon the stories.
The strange face of the old lady seemed to look at her from the printed
page.

How small and sharp her eyes had been, and how she asked the same
question again and again. Did she doubt the answer given her?

All these, and many more questions puzzled Dorothy, and with the open
book lying upon her lap, she looked off where the sunlight lay upon the
grass.

She was still sitting thus when a merry voice aroused her, and she
turned to see Nancy running toward her.

"Oh, Dorothy!" she cried. "You ought to have been up at the hotel just a
few moments ago. A new guest came, and she was so cross, it _must_ be
that she didn't want to come. But if she truly _didn't_ want to, then
why _did_ she?"

"Why, Nancy, who wouldn't think it fine to come up here to the
mountains, and stay at the Cleverton?" said Dorothy in surprise.

"Well, you wouldn't have thought the old lady was glad to be there, if
you'd seen her," said Nancy.

"Oh, was it an old lady that you were talking about?" Dorothy asked
quickly.

"Yes, and you ought to have seen her eyes snap when she scolded her
chauffeur. She told him she might have arrived an hour before just as
well as not, and she kept right on scolding to herself, all the way up
to the piazza, and, Dorothy, she looked so cross, I wouldn't wonder if
she was scolding up in her room now!"

"She must be the same one that was here just a little while ago,"
Dorothy said, "and she asked me to tell her the nearest way to the
Cleverton. When I told her, she made the man rush off over the road, and
she was scolding him when they left here. Perhaps she was tired, and
will feel pleasanter when she has rested."

"Perhaps," agreed Nancy, "but I know Aunt Charlotte and your mamma don't
act that way wh