Madge laughed softly. "Miss Betsey said she felt enough like a fool, being married at her age, without having a lot of young girls standing around to laugh at her. But John Randolph wouldn't let her take care of him unless she did marry him, and she had no idea of separating him from his grandchild," concluded Madge.
"What a lot of things have happened this summer," remarked Lillian. "Who would have thought that we should leave David Brewster in Virginia! Mr. Preston says that if David will work for him he will help him go to college."
"David is a bully fellow!" declared Tom. "I don't think we understood him just at first."
"Yes, and Tom Curtis is another," teased Madge; "only he won't blow his own horn, unless it is his fog-horn. Tom offered to pay David's expenses at college if he would come home with us, but David said he thought it would be better for him to earn his own way."
Miss Jenny Ann waved frantically from the deck of the houseboat.
"Tie up along shore, Tom; it is growing late. Remember, this is our last supper party together this summer," she called out.
It was the first week in September. The evening had grown unexpectedly cool when Tom ran the two boats up by the river bank. In the morning they were to put into shore at a nearby town, and the little company of friends would disband to travel to their homes in various parts of the country. So for to-night they had planned to have a wonderful feast on land, and to make it their good-bye memory of their summer cruise.
Tom had selected a line of open shore, with a grove of chestnut trees just back of it.
Each member of the party went on land, bearing boxes, lunch-hampers and baskets of fruit. Tom staggered under a particularly large box that was very tall and round, as though it contained a new Easter bonnet with feathers standing straight up on it.
Madge and Phil marched behind him, urging him to be careful every foot of the way.