This they did, and came back with the report that at least twenty had promised to join them, so that when the afternoon came the little company was ready for the march. It was a varied assortment of sizes, ages, and styles. All wore white hats, which covered their hair, and sprays of goldenrod stuck in their belts. On the stroke of four they advanced in a body to the middle of the bridge where they were met, not by a single individual, but by as many as six young men, who passed them nonchalantly, while one of them casually remarked, “Must be going on a picnic.”
“More like the chorus from the opera of ‘Patience,’” observed another as he softly sang, “Twenty love-sick maidens we.”
The twenty moved on, stifling their laughter as best they could. “And we don’t know a man Jack among them,” whispered Mabel to Ellen.
“And probably they don’t know a woman Jenny among us,” returned Ellen.
The twenty pursued their way a little farther and then climbed down the rocks to where a motor-boat was awaiting them. Into this they entered and were borne away, leaving the young men to their own devices.
This was Miss Rindy’s idea. “I wasn’t going to have even the single one we expected to meet, tagging after us to see where we lived, any one of us,” she said.
CHAPTER XVII
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
It was only a day or two after this that Ellen, going for the mail, met Cap’n Belah on the road. He grinned when he saw her. “Wal, I hear you women folks met up with your match the other afternoon,” he said.
“I think you might call it a drawn game,” Ellen retorted; “neither party got the better of the other.”