The Motor Maids were gathered in Mrs. Brown’s sunny parlor around a cheerful driftwood fire. You may easily guess it was Saturday morning, because Nancy was darning stockings, Elinor was at the piano, Mary was reading, while Billie lay flat on her back on the hearth rug, her hands crossed under her head, thinking deeply.

“I wish people were not so careless of their diamond necklaces and things,” she observed, addressing the ceiling with some irritation. “Throwing them around in motor cars, giving them to the first person who comes along, and not caring to have them returned! It’s a nuisance——”

Suddenly the door was thrown violently open and Merry appeared.

“Mrs. Ruggles,” he announced, making a low bow.

Nancy did not take the trouble to turn around. Elinor went on playing and Mary reading. It was only one of Merry’s jokes, they thought. But Billie jumped up in amazement; for there actually stood Mrs. Ruggles in the flesh—very much in the flesh, in fact. She was dressed in decent black and wore a black bonnet, and Billie could not decide whether she resembled a queen disguised as a fish-wife or a fish-wife dressed as a lady.

“Why, it is Mrs. Ruggles,” cried Nancy, glancing over her shoulder. “Merry plays so many jokes that we can never tell when he is in earnest and when he isn’t. Do come in, Mrs. Ruggles. What brings you up to town so early?”

Mrs. Ruggles, who was slow of speech, did not reply at first. She moved into the room with the step of a grenadier and stood before Billie.

“Are you Miss Wilhelmina Campbell?” she asked.

“She is the same,” put in Merry, “but she’ll answer to the name of Billie.”

Billie nodded and smiled. She was really too much engaged in admiring Mrs. Ruggles to reply to her question.

Nancy pushed up an armchair.

“Please sit down, Mrs. Ruggles, and perhaps you will have a cookie or a cup of tea.”

“No, Miss Nancy, I am not hungry and I couldn’t eat anyway, until I finished what I have to say.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Ruggles. Get it off your system. Are you going to scold Billie?” cried Merry.

“No, my boy. I’m going to thank her. She’s a fine young lady. I have just seen Miss Campbell and she has told me.”

“Told you what?” asked Billie.

“Told me that you have kept the box of jewels as you promised.”

“But——” began Billie, a dozen thoughts flashing through her mind at once in tumultuous confusion.

She saw again the face of the sick woman at Mrs. Ruggles’, her long hair spread over the pillow like a mantel of black and the troubled dark eyes which gazed into hers for one brief moment.

“Then that was the automobile lady I saw in your bedroom?” she burst out.

“Yes,” replied the old woman. “That was my daughter, Maria.”

“Is Maria home again?” asked Elinor.

“I thought she had married a South American,” said Nancy.

“Maria is now a singer,” said Mrs. Ruggles proudly. “She has sung in Buenos Ayres and Paris, not in this country. Her husband was from Venezuela. He was very rich and he gave her many jewels. He loved her dearly for a few years, until he began to like something else better.”

The old woman paused. It was extremely difficult for her to speak at such great length when she was so unaccustomed to talking at all.

“My daughter is very beautiful and very clever. She will be a great singer. He was jealous of her singing. He wished to be great, too, and he became a politician. Gradually he spent all of his money in making trouble for the government of his country. He wished to bring about a war and make himself a ruler. My son, my daughter’s step brother, pushed him on. He was a bad boy, my only son. It is better that he should be dead. He was always in the thick of the fight. He couldn’t keep away. His arm was shot off; his eye put out. But nothing could stop him.”

“Was Ruiz really your son, John, who went away to sea so many years ago?” interrupted Nancy.

Mrs. Ruggles nodded.

“What happened next, Mrs. Ruggles?” demanded Billie.

“The next thing was that my Maria could not stand the life any longer. She came back to America with her jewels. They were all that was left of her husband’s fortune and those he wanted so much that he threatened her many times. If he had wished to use them for a good purpose and not for rifles to kill innocent people, Maria would have given them gladly. But he was too clever for her, that man. He followed on a fast steamer and caught up with her before she could get to me. He forced her to go with him in an automobile down the Shell Island road to meet John, my poor son, who was to take the jewels and sell them. Maria always carried her jewelry in a secret pocket inside of her skirt, but she had put it in a box that day and wrapped the box in her coat. Her husband did not know this. He thought she had it in the usual place. When they were upset going around a curve in the road my Maria was very seriously injured. She is still very lame. Her husband went away to get another car and you know the rest.

“When they found out in a few hours that she did not have the jewels they were very angry. She told them the truth: that she had given them to a young lady she had met, and asked her to take care of them. Although she did not have the name or address of this young lady, she knew they would be safe.”

“And Mr. Lafitte?” began Billie.

“He is an old friend, a lawyer who lives in Paris. She happened to have his card in her pocket. But he had just started to America and the letter she wrote, and your letter, came back here. That is how I happened to get your name at last, Miss Wilhelmina. Mr. Lafitte was with my daughter yesterday.”

“And what became of your son-in-law, Mrs. Ruggles?” asked Elinor.

“He died some weeks ago,” replied Mrs. Ruggles. “He was accidentally shot with one of his own rifles, which exploded and killed him. My son had his body sent to us and we laid him to rest in the old Sabater burying ground, where all my family is buried. It is better that he should have died. He only made trouble while he lived, not only for poor Maria, but for his country, where many have been killed with the rifles he has smuggled in. He was a good man until he got in with those revolutionists. And my poor son, my poor John, how much sorrow he has brought us——”

Billie wondered if Mrs. Ruggles really knew the extent of her poor son’s evil career. Perhaps she did, for the old woman’s face twitched nervously for a moment and she covered her eyes with her hand, as if she wished to hide her unhappiness from the young girls.

“Maria and I are going away for a long time,” she went on at last, with a rather shaky voice. “I will close the Inn. It is hard for me to leave home in my old age, but Maria wishes it, and it is better for me to be with her. Good-by and thank you,” she said simply, rising and taking Billie’s hand.

Billie stood on tiptoe and put her arms around Mrs. Ruggles’ neck.

“Good-by, Mrs. Ruggles,” she said. “I hope that your troubles are all over now and you and your daughter will be happy together.”

The old woman wiped her eyes. She could not speak when she said good-by to the other girls, but silently handed Billie a little package and hurried away.

The package, when unwrapped, proved to be a small box containing a pretty gold filigree necklace. Written on a card inside was this message:

“With my love and gratitude. This is a simple little necklace my father brought me once from a voyage to the East. I am fond of it and that is why I send it to you. Will you wear it sometimes and think of me? I shall never forget your kindness and loyalty.

“Maria Ruggles Cortina.”

And now we have reached the end of our tale. Those troublous first months of Billie Campbell’s early school days in West Haven are changed into happy, quiet times, with plenty of study and plenty of play. All doubts and mysteries are cleared up, and the Motor Maids, wholesome, nice girls, are none the worse for their adventures.

It is in their beloved “Comet” that we see them last, flashing down Main Street toward the open country.

Billie, like the good pilot she is, is seated at the wheel, her fine gray eyes ever on the lookout. Nancy is bubbling over with laughter and gaiety. Elinor, on the back seat, holds herself as proudly as a queen, and little Mary, with a grave smile on her face, looks out across the fields, her clear eyes, deep as pools, holding and reflecting, as ever, the beauty from without intensified by the purity of the spirit within.

The friendship of these four school girls was of the quality that outlives a single season and many adventures. It held them together, in fact, so closely that they often found themselves planning for an indefinite future of partnership and mutual pleasures. That they realized their anticipations to some extent at least is assured, for the next volume of this series, “The Motor Maids by Palm and Pine,” is a further account of their good times together.

THE END.