not to think of
what we all went through."

"And the soup I tasted!" groaned the plump one. "That diet kitchen in
Paris! I'll never get over it--never!"

"I guess _that's_ right," agreed Mercy Curtis, the sharp-featured girl.
"How that really nice Frenchman can stand for such a fat girl--"

"Why," explained Heavy calmly, "the more there is of me the more there
is for him to like." Then she giggled. "There were so few fat people
left in Europe after four years of war that everybody liked to look at
me."

"You certainly are a sight for sore eyes," Helen Cameron shot over her
shoulder, but without losing sight of the road ahead. She was a careful,
if rapid, driver. "And for any other eyes! One couldn't very well miss
you, Heavy."

"Let's not talk any more about France--or the war--or anything like
that," proposed Ruth Fielding, the shadow on her face deepening. "Both
your Henri and Helen's Tom have had to go back--"

"Helen's Tom?" repeated Mercy Curtis softly. But Jennie Stone pinched
her. She would not allow anybody to tease Ruth, although they all knew
well enough that the absence of Helen's twin brother meant as much to
Ruth Fielding as it did to his sister.

This was strictly a girl's party, this ride in Helen Cameron's
automobile. Aside from Mercy, who was the daughter of the Cheslow
railroad station agent, and therefore lived in Cheslow all the year
around, the girls were not native to the place. They had just left that
pretty town behind them. It appeared that Ruth, Helen, and surely Jennie
Stone, knew very few of the young men of Cheslow. So this jaunt was, as
Jennie saucily said, entirely "_poulette_".

"Which she thinks is French for 'old hen,'" scoffed the tart Mercy.

"I do not know which is worse," Ruth Fielding said with a sigh, as Helen
slowed down for a railroad crossing at which stood a flagman. "Heavy's
French or her slang."

"Slang! Never!" cried the plump girl, tossing her head "Far be it from
me and et cetera. I never use slang. I am quite as much of a purist as
that professor at Ardmore--what was his name?--that they tell the story
about. The dear dean told him that some of the undergrads complained
that his language was 'too pedantic and unintelligible.'"

"'Never, Madam! Impossible! Why,' said the prof, 'to employ a vulgarism,
perspicuity is my penultimate appellative.'"

"Ow! Ow!" groaned Helen at the wheel "I bet that hurt your vocal cords,
Heavy."

She let in the clutch again as