tie Hyde.

"Oh, well, you are missionaries, you know," says Starrett assuringly.
"Perhaps your club may be the means of introducing tricycles into many
of the places we shall pass through."

"That's one of our objects, of course," observes Charley.

"If girls and women knew what comfort one can take with a tricycle, half
the battle would be won," says Arno Cummings timidly.

[Illustration: "THE BUSHES WHIZ PAST,--TREES, STONES, FENCES FLIT BY
LIKE PHANTOMS."]

"It isn't altogether that, Arno," says Charley, who, as the originator
of the club, has her advanced theories to support. "A good many would
like to, but don't really dare. You know that Shakspere says 'Conscience
doth make cowards of us all.' I think that custom makes us cowards,
too."

"Custom will be on our side, though, by and by," declares Mattie Hyde.
"Doctor Sawyer told Mamma the other day that he would prescribe the
tricycle rather than medicine for many of his patients. He said that the
machines are much used in England, and that they are gaining ground in
this country, though not so rapidly as he could wish."

But even this knowledge of the healthfulness and desirability of the
tricycle does not make a hard piece of road any easier. After a night's
rest at the hospitable house of an aunt of Mattie Hyde's, the club find
themselves, next day, among the "Sandwiches," as Starrett facetiously
dubs the town of that name which is divided into North, East, South, and
West Sandwich. And there they come upon a wooded tract that sorely taxes
their endurance and presents the most formidable obstacle they have yet
encountered. The sand is impassable; it closes completely over the
wheel-tires, and, after a short space of arduous labor, the club come to
a dismayed standstill.

"What on earth are we to do?" queries Corny Hadwin in despair.

No one answers her. The boughs wave softly overhead; the small cloud of
dust their efforts have raised floats slowly away and settles on the
scant herbage underneath the pines. Near at hand sounds the shriek of
the "up" train. They are not far from the railroad.

"Shall we give it up and take to the train?" Starrett asks, as they
catch the sound of the locomotive.

"Dear me, we mustn't do that!" exclaims Charley. "Let's dismount and
push the machines a little way. Perhaps the wheeling is better just
ahead."

But it is not. The ruts are strewn with straw, shavings, and chips;
everything indicates that the woods are exte