"So I ought, but I was afraid mother would be made ill by the sight of me, if I did, after dinner. Oh, how good it is to be at home! Let's camp down here on the grass and send for the rest of the clan. Run over, Rufie, will you, and get all the Bells that will come?"
As she spoke, Shirley dropped upon the smooth turf close by the big wicker chair that Murray had just drawn up for Jane, on the terrace at the edge of the court. Her cheeks were flushed by the lively exercise she had been taking, her hair curled moistly about her forehead. Jane looked at her with a touch of envy in her affectionate glance. Being Mrs. Murray Townsend, she supposed it became her to sit demurely in a chair, instead of putting herself, as she longed to do, beside Shirley, on the grass. But Murray, with no such restraining thought in his head, cast himself upon the turf beside his sister, at his wife's feet.
Presently Rufus returned, bringing Nancy and Ross McAndrew. Olive, spying the group upon the lawn, came trailing out in all her pretty finery of the afternoon. Two or three young neighbours appeared. By and by Peter Bell, just home from the paper-factory, looked across from the Gay Street porch and descried the distant group. Somebody had brought a banjo, and somebody else was essaying to sing a boating-song to the accompaniment.
"Shall I go over?" thought Peter, when he had had his bath and his supper, and had come out upon the porch again.
He was quite alone, for his mother, after serving his supper, had hurried out to see a neighbour who had been long ill, and who depended upon Mrs. Bell for her daily cheer. Mr. Bell had driven out to Grandfather Bell's farm. The little house seemed strangely silent, and the porch, in the early summer twilight, more companionable. A hammock swung behind the vines, and after a moment's indecision, Peter stretched his long form in it, clasping his hands under his head. He was unusually weary, for the day had been very hot. He lay quietly listening to the distant 'plunkings' of the banjo and to the faint sounds of talk and laughter which floated across the space to him. So, after a little, he fell asleep.
He was awakened by the sound of voices on the step. The Bell porch, unlike that of the Townsends, possessed no electric lamps, and the nearest illumination to-night came from an arc-light on the corner. Peter, in his hammock, lay shrouded wholly in darkness. He could see a gleam of white between the vines which sheltered him, and the voices were those of his sister Nancy and Shirley Townsend.
"It's such a relief," Shirley was saying, "to get away from that banjo. I seem to have been listening all day to the sorts of music I like least. Rodman Fielding and his banjo are the last straw. Nan, what do you suppose is the matter with me that I don't seem to care for the things most girls do--clothes and boys and--banjos. I detest banjos!"
"What do you care for?" Nancy asked. "Tennis, anyhow. And you like Rufus and Ross and Peter, don't you? As for banjos--I don 't think anybody thinks they 're very musical. They just like the funny songs that go with them."
"Rufus is like a brother, and Ross like an uncle--a young one. As for Peter--I don't seem to know Peter. He 's changed. What 's he been doing to make him look so old and sober? I almost thought I saw a gray hair--and he 's no older than Murray."
"Peter old and sober?"--Peter himself was growing fairly awake, although not fully enough roused to the situation to realise that he was playing eavesdropper.--"What an idea! He has n't changed a particle. Gray hair! It could n't be. Why, Peter 's stronger than all the rest of us put together!"