There was a fire built, and the fish, nicely cleaned, were cooked over the coals. Florence thought all this delightful. She had never enjoyed such an experience, and watched the proceedings with the greatest pleasure. Every one was ready to enjoy the supper when it was prepared, saying that fish never tasted so good, and that the coffee, made in a very ordinary tin coffee-pot, could not be improved.
Dimple whispered to Florence that there was a secret under the grey blanket; and that she half suspected what it was, but she didn't intend to look. Even a delighted giggle from Bubbles did not cause her to turn her head, but when that small hand-maiden, who was bustling about waiting on every one, offered her a saucer of ice cream, Dimple exclaimed, "I guessed it! I guessed it to myself."
"Guessed what?" said Mr. Atkinson, at her side.
"Guessed that it was an ice cream freezer under the blanket," returned Dimple.
"Oho! so you've been trying to find out, have you?"
"No. I didn't try. I only hoped," replied Dimple, gravely. At which Mr. Atkinson laughed heartily; just why, Dimple was puzzled to discover.
When the supper was over and the baskets repacked, they played all manner of games till the great round moon rose over the river, and then they rowed home, singing as they floated along in the silvery moonlight.
Florence and Dimple sat side by side, in a sort of waking dream; and Bubbles dreamed too, as was very evident when the boat landed, for she was sound asleep, and had to be called and shaken before she knew where she was. Then she blundered along behind the others, still so sleepy that she forgot to take off her precious blue beads when she went to bed, and in the night the string broke; consequently when she awoke in the morning she found the beads straggling over the floor and strewing the sheets.
"Didn't we have a good time?" said Florence, looking out on the moonlight, as she stood at the window in Dimple's room.
"Yes," was Dimple's reply, "all but the snake. I don't like snakes."