“Well, then, let us walk away and forget her,” said his wife. “I don’t wonder she annoys you.”
“If it were only the young woman,” thought Mrs. Archibald, as the two strolled away beneath the light of the moon, “we might manage it. But her brother!”
At the next indication of a pause in Corona’s discourse the bishop suddenly stood on his feet. “I wonder,” he said, “if there is anything the matter with Mrs. Archibald? I will step over to her cabin to see.”
“Indeed!” said Corona, rising with great promptness, “I hope it is nothing serious. I will go with you.”
Margery was not a rude girl, but she could not help a little laugh, which she subdued as much as possible; Mr. Clyde, who was sitting near her, laughed also.
“There is nothing on earth the matter with Aunt Harriet,” said Margery. “They didn’t go into the cabin; I saw them walking away down the shore.”
“How would you like to walk that way?” he asked. “I think their example is a very good one.”
“It is capital,” said Margery, jumping up, “and let’s get away quickly before she comes back.”
They hurried away, but they did not extend their walk down the lake shore even as far as Mr. and Mrs. Archibald had already gone. When they came to the bit of beach behind the clump of trees where the bishop had retired that afternoon to read, they stopped and sat down to watch the moonlight on the water.
Matlack and Mrs. Perkenpine were now the only persons at the camp-fire, for Bill Hammond, as was his custom, had promptly gone to bed as soon as his work was done. If Arthur Raybold had intended to come to the camp-fire, he had changed his mind, for he now stood near his sister’s tent, apparently awaiting the approach of Corona and the bishop, who had not found the Archibalds, and who were now walking together in what might have been supposed, by people who did not know the lady, to be an earnest dialogue.