She hated the journey to town, he knew, and he thought it rather funny that she should undertake it again on a hot morning like this, the very day that most of their guests, including the Applebury clan, were coming down. I silently agreed with him--more heartily than I was willing to admit. There were several things that looked rather queer to me. I couldn’t resist asking a question or two. “Have you seen Judy this morning?” He shook his head. “I haven’t seen anybody but Uncle Alec. He was down to breakfast and we walked around the place for a while, afterward. He asked me about a million questions. I like him, though.” I wanted to know what he looked like. “Oh, kind of peaceful and jolly. But he sees things quickly enough. I told him about where Gran keeps the necklace. I sort of left him in charge so that I could come over here.” “You don’t think,” I hazarded, “that he was the person Judy meant by ‘old Eagle-Eye’?” He looked rather thoughtful over that, but said he didn’t. “Somehow he isn’t like that. Anyhow, I thought she was talking about the man she’s going to marry--Bruce Applebury.” This didn’t strike me as likely. The adjective old, for instance. Applebury was under thirty. But then Judy, like Punch himself, wouldn’t hesitate to apply it to any one over twenty-five. I grew more apprehensive and indignant as I turned the matter over in my mind after Punch had gone back--“on the job,” as he said. Victoria was in shoal water of some sort. There couldn’t be any doubt of that. Academically speaking, I was sorry for her. But I had no sympathy with what seemed like an attempt to drag Judy into the breakers with her. Oh yes, I’m sentimental about Judy. I may as well admit that at once. CHAPTER III FRUSTRATION OF PUNCH None of the Corbins went down to the village, which is the better part of two miles from The Oaks, to meet the train. Both Gran and Uncle Alec seemed to think it rather queer that Judy didn’t plan to go, but she explained her position with perfect lucidity. “We’ve hardly been able to scrape up cars enough to bring them all out in one trip. And mother will be there, of course, to do the arranging.” “Won’t your young man feel a bit defrauded at not finding you there?” Uncle Alec asked her. “It’s hard to know about that,” Judy answered him thoughtfully. “That’s another reason. You see, I don’t know whether he’d expect me to kiss him on the station platform or not. I think it’s safer, on the whole, to wait and do it here.” The train happened to be late, and they waited quite a while--Gran, Uncle Alec, Judy and Punch in the corner of one of the deep verandas that commanded the drive. At last the first car appeared. “There’s Bruce,” Judy said. “He’s the one in the front seat.” She turned to her brother with a funny sort of smile, and added, “So it looks as if it were really going to happen, Punch.”