“It’s Robert Widdemere!” Nan said, and then, as he came up and greeted them, she added, “But only yesterday I had a letter from you and in it you said nothing about coming.”
“I wanted to surprise you, Lady Red Bird,” the lad exclaimed. “Isn’t it grand and glorious, Nan, to be once more in this wonderful country. I wish we could start right now for a ride up the mountains.”
“I couldn’t go today,” the gypsy girl laughingly told him, “for I have something baking in the oven and it cannot be left.”
“I could tend to it,” Miss Dahlia said, but Nan shook her head.
“It’s a surprise for tomorrow,” she merrily declared, “and I don’t want even you, Aunt Dahlia, to know what it is.”
Then turning happy eyes toward the lad, she said, “Think of it, Robert Widdemere, tomorrow will be Thanksgiving day and five years since you and I rode to the mountain top.”
“Nan, comrade,” the boy said eagerly, “let’s take that ride again tomorrow, dressed gypsy-wise as we were before, shall we?”
“As you wish, Robert Widdemere,” Nan laughingly replied. “Thanksgiving seems to be a fateful day for us.”
A happy hour the young people spent together. Robert wished to hear all that happened and when Nan protested that she had written every least little thing, he declared that it had all been so interesting, it would bear repeating.
Suddenly the girl sprang up, holding out both hands as she exclaimed, “Robert, I shall have to ask you to come at some other time. I must look after that something which is baking for tomorrow.” The lad caught the hands as he said, “Good-bye, then, I’ll reappear at about ten.”