"
"If that's the case," she observed, "I'm likely to be a handicap to you,
am I not?"
"Lord, no," he smiled. "I'll put you to work too, when you get rested up
from your trip. You stick with me, Sis, and you'll wear diamonds."
She laughed with him at this, and leaving the shady maple they walked up
to the hotel, where Benton proposed that they get a canoe and paddle to
where Roaring River flowed out of the lake half a mile westward, to kill
the time that must elapse before the three-thirty train.
The St. Allwoods' car was rolling out to Hopyard when they came back. By
the time Benton had turned the canoe over to the boathouse man and
reached the wharf, the horn of the returning machine sounded down the
road. They waited. The car came to a stop at the abutting wharf. The
driver handed two suitcases off the burdened hood of his machine. From
out the tonneau clambered a large, smooth-faced young man. He wore an
expansive smile in addition to a blue serge suit, white Panama, and
polished tan Oxfords, and he bestowed a hearty greeting upon Charlie
Benton. But his smile suffered eclipse, and a faint flush rose in his
round cheeks, when his eyes fell upon Benton's sister.
CHAPTER III
HALFWAY POINT
Miss Benton's cool, impersonal manner seemed rather to heighten the
young man's embarrassment. Benton, apparently observing nothing amiss,
introduced them in an offhand fashion.
"Mr. Abbey--my sister."
Mr. Abbey bowed and murmured something that passed for acknowledgment.
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