"Isn't he?" agreed Cora, murmuringly. "I sha'n't worry so much about
Jack, now that I know Wally is with him. Oh, but if he has to leave
college--"

Cora did not finish. Together she and Bess left the library, seeking
Mrs. Kimball, to impart to her the sudden and unwelcome news. And
so, when there is a moment or two, during which nothing of
chronicling interest is taking place, my dear readers may be glad of
a little explanation regarding Cora Kimball and her chums, and also a
word or two concerning the previous books of this series.

Cora Kimball was the real leader of the motor girls. She was, by
nature, destined for such a position, and the fact that she, of all
her chums, was the first to possess an automobile, added to her
prestige. In the first volume of this series, entitled "The Motor
Girls," I had the pleasure of telling how, amid many other
adventures, Cora, and her chums, Bess and Belle Robinson, helped to
solve the mystery of a twenty thousand dollar loss.

Cora, Bess and Belle were real girl chums, but they never knew all,
the delights of chumship until they "went in" for motoring. Living
in the New England town of Chelton, on the Chelton River, life had
been rather hum-drum, until the advent of the "gasoline gigs" as
Jack, Cora's brother, slangily dubbed them. Jack, with whose
fortunes we shall concern ourselves at more length presently, had a
car of his own--one strictly limited to two--a low-slung red and
yellow racing car, "giddy and gaudy," Cora called it.

Later on, the Robinson twins also became possessed of an automobile,
and then followed many delightful trips.