“Not exactly,” said Clyde. “I discovered her, by her kitchen tent, hard at work eating her own breakfast. I must have looked surprised, for she lost no time in telling me that she was a hermit, and was living for one person at a time—herself first—and that she was mighty glad to get a chance to have her breakfast before anybody else, for she was always hungry and hated waiting. I looked at the table, and saw that she had the breakfast ready for the whole party; so I said, ‘I am a hermit too, and I am living for myself, and so I am going to sit down and eat.’ ‘Squat,’ said she, and down I sat; and I had the best meal of her cooking that I have yet tasted. I told her so, and she said she shouldn’t wonder. ‘Because,’ said she, ‘I cooked this breakfast for myself—me, one—and as I wasn’t thinkin’ what other people ’d like, I got things a little more tasty than common, I guess.’”
“And what does she expect Miss Raybold and her brother to do?” asked Mrs. Archibald.
“When she had finished she got up,” Clyde answered, “and went away, merely remarking that the victuals were there, and when the others were ready for them they might come and get them.”
“I hope,” said Mr. Archibald, “that Matlack will not fancy that sort of a hermit life. But as for me, I am greatly taken with the scheme. I think I shall like it. Is Miss Raybold about yet?”
“I see nothing of her,” said Clyde, looking over towards her tent.
“Good,” said Mr. Archibald, rising. “Harriet, if you want me, I shall be in my cave.”
“And where is that?” she asked.
“Oh, I can’t say exactly where it will be,” he answered, “but if you will go down to the shore of the lake and blow four times on the dinner-horn I’ll come to you, cave and all. I can easily pull it over the water.”
“You forget,” said Mrs. Archibald, with a smile, “that we are associate hermits.”
“No, I do not,” said her husband, “I remember it, and that is the reason I am off before Miss Raybold emerges upon the scene.”