"Come on," she said, turning abruptly toward the tent, "I'm starved for my supper!"
CHAPTER XXVI
"You bad girl," cried Clarice Van Rensselaer from the table, "why did you run away? See this nice dinner spoiling for you! I've regained my good nature, which is lucky for you, but you'll have to give an account of yourself. Actually, I had to send Mr. Livingston to look you up!" She glanced with a well-bred look of quizzical amusement from Hope's brilliant, flushed face to the man who accompanied her. "Well, you see that I for one didn't wait for you," she concluded; "couldn't! I don't think I ever was so hungry before in my whole life. Everything tastes perfectly delicious!"
"William has outdone himself this time," remarked Sydney, as the girl drew up an empty box and seated herself at the table, taking a little food upon her plate and making a pretense of eating. Everything tasted like wood. She could scarcely swallow. It finally occurred to her that she must be acting very unlike herself. She made a violent effort to appear natural, succeeding fairly well.
"You haven't given account of yourself, yet," said Mrs. Van Rensselaer, glancing from her end of the table to where Hope sat, still in silence.
"Don't ask me," said the girl. "My excuse would sound too trivial to you, Clarice. Perhaps I wanted to watch the first stars of evening."
"Or follow a frog to its nest in the weeds," supplemented Sydney, "or catch grass-hoppers that had gone to roost, or listen to the night-song of the cat bird in the brush or—or what, Hopie? Maybe you were writing poems in your mind, or preparing new lessons for school to-morrow."
"Yes, that's just it," she replied. "I was preparing new lessons—for to-morrow!"
"How funny!" laughed Mrs. Van Rensselaer. "I had forgotten you were a full-fledged school-teacher. Of course, I suppose you do have to think about your teaching some. Goodness, I wouldn't like it at all! It must be an awful task to bother with a lot of rough, dirty children! How many pupils have you?"