"Oh, you might know she'd duck," pouted Jack, "just as we were getting comfortable. Keep your old letter. I won't listen to it now," and he moved away. "I've forgotten something in my machine!" exclaimed Ed suddenly with a sly wink at Cora. "I'll just run and get it, if you'll excuse me." Cora knew exactly what he intended to do. Quickly, as he came back in his runabout, she ran down the piazza steps, and was in the machine before either Walter or Jack realized what was taking place. "Now I'll hear the letter without being interrupted!" exclaimed Ed as he put on speed and escaped with the laughing girl, who waved the missive above her head. CHAPTER XVII A RUNAWAY AUTO When Cora finished reading Mary's letter to Ed, which did not take long, she looked up at him and asked: "Well, what do you think of it?" "I--er--I think--would you mind very much if I didn't tell you what I think of it?" he answered her in turn. "No," she said slowly; "not if you don't care to. But I thought perhaps--Jack says you know who took the money," she finished hurriedly. She had wanted to get alone with Ed more to ask him this than to read Mary's letter to him. Ed started. "Jack said that?" he asked, obviously to gain time. "Yes." "I didn't exactly say, that. I said I had my suspicions. He must have misunderstood me." "Very likely. Jack's rather impetuous. Then you don't know?" "Not exactly." "I'll not ask you whom you suspect," declared Cora, though it was hard work not to, for she had her share of curiosity, and she felt, in a measure, that suspicion for the robbery was upon her and her friends. They were both rather sober after that, and following a short ride around quiet streets Ed brought her home. Walter and Jack were gone. "Good-by," said Ed as he started away. "If I--er--if I make my suspicions a certainty I'll tell you before I do any one else." "Will you--really?" "Yes." When the Robinson girls called on Cora the next afternoon she had about completed her plans for the lawn fete. It was to be a novel affair, and almost all the eligible young folks of Chelton were to be invited. "All," declared Cora, "except Sid Wilcox. He simply shall not come." "But how can you leave him out?" questioned Bess. "Especially as you are going to ask Ida and others in that set." "I simply will not have him," insisted Cora, "and I don't care what any one thinks about it. He is too--too impertinent to be polite, and I will not run the risk of having him offend some one." Secretly Cora was thinking of his last transgression, and it afforded her no small consolation to note that her particular friends had not heard of the stolen ride. Belle, "relaxing" on the low divan in the library window, just where the sun could help her out on the rest theory, was too deeply buried in thought to make rash comment on Cora's decision. She wanted everything simply perfect, and to shape plans with such precision was no easy matter.