The wind-blown, disheveled trio began to laugh. "Look at this peace offering, Miss Martha," said John, holding up the pails. "Have you the heart to do anything but fall on our necks? If you had seen the drops on my brow as I stooped over those miserable little bushes."
"Yes, if anybody had seen them!" exclaimed Edna scornfully. "Go right up to the same room you had last night, John, and bathe that brow, and be down here in five minutes, if you want Miss Lacey ever to smile on you again."
Miss Martha was very proud of her dining-room at Anemone Cottage. She was wont to say at home that one of the best features of her vacation was not having to consider the cost of providing for the little household; and to-night the immaculate table, with its ferns and wild roses in the centre, was laden with good things for the wanderers who gathered about it hungrily.
"When I think how I labored to procure those berries," repeated Dunham, looking pensively at the heaped-up dish on Miss Martha's right, "it seems almost a sacrilege to eat them."
"Aunt Martha, he didn't pick a pint!" protested Sylvia. "He ought not to have one."
"Ask her what she did," returned John. "She has a sylph-like, æsthetic appearance, but I give you my word she has the most epicurean eye. She hasn't left a prize berry in those fields. Have you seen her booty?"
"No. What does he mean, Sylvia?"
"He means to distract attention from his own laziness, that's all."
"No, I don't. I mean to have some of those rotund berries of yours. Don't you, Edna? I'll wager she hasn't thrown them in with this common lot. Have you, now?"
Sylvia laughed and colored. "No," she answered.