The girl had begun to wonder why she did not hear from Mrs. Van Vorst as to when her boys were coming, when a letter arrived. To her great joy it announced that they would be due at the Sugar Hill station the following Saturday, as they would leave New York in the White Mountain express, probably reaching their destination about seven in the evening. Nathalie was somewhat disappointed that the boys were not to go on to the Littleton station, where Mr. Banker had planned to meet them. But alas, she could not ask him to come all the way over to the Sugar Hill station, and then, too, she knew that he and his wife generally took little outings through the mountains every week-end. Deeply perplexed, she pondered over the matter with no little anxiety, and then suddenly it came to her that she would see if Miss Whipple would not let her hire her machine, and then go for the boys herself. She had learned to know the mountain roads in riding with Jakes when he went to the different hotels to deliver the sweet peas. He had often let her drive, as she had previously learned to handle a car from her many rides with Grace, and had even secured a license through the insistence of her friend. Hurrying through her work, she hastened down to the tea-house, where she found the two ladies in a state of unusual excitement, for Jakes, Miss Whipple explained, was quite ill, and they were at a loss as to how they were to get their flowers to the various hotels the following day. And the Profile House had sent in a special order, for there was to be some kind of a festivity there that evening, and they wanted the bunches of sweet peas for prizes. “Oh, don’t worry over that,” cried the girl quickly, as she perceived their distress, “for I can deliver the flowers for you. I can drive and I know the roads, for I have been about so much with Jakes and Mr. Banker.” After some little hesitation the two ladies consented that Nathalie should deliver the flowers, insisting, however, in return for her kindness to them, that she should have the car for her own use in the afternoon, to drive to the station for the boys. To Nathalie it was quite a new experience, to get up in the cool gray of early dawn, dress hurriedly, swallow a hasty breakfast,—her mother was to act as housekeeper for the day,—and then hurry down to the tea-house. It did not take her long to load the car with its flowery burden, and then she was speeding through Sugar Hill village, and on to the Long Green Path, as she called the road through the woods that led to Seven Pillars and Franconia. The air was so cool from the moisture of the night dew that still lay in glistening gems and silvery cobwebs on the hilly greens, the leaves, ferns, and wild flowers, and bracing from the ozone of the mountain breezes that heralded the new-born day, that the girl’s pulses throbbed with buoyant exhilaration.