They found supper laid on the piazza, and enjoyed it with keen appetites. Afterward they spent an hour drifting on the river, followed by a long and delightful evening on the lawn at the river bank. Celia and Lanse picked the strings of violin and viola, and the others sang. Doctor Forester, in his white clothes lay stretched on a rustic seat, and professed himself to be having "the time of his life."
"I don't think the rest of us are far behind you," declared Lanse. "If you people had been digging away at law in a hot old office you'd think this was Paradise."
Evelyn, looking out over the moonlit river, drew a little sigh which she meant nobody to hear, but Jeff divined it, and whispered, under cover of an extravaganza from Just in regard to the night, the company, and the occasion, "You're coming again next summer, you know. And all winter we'll write about it--shall we?"
"Do you think you will have time to write?" she asked.
"Have time! I should say I would make time," he murmured. "Think I'm going to stand having this sort of thing cut off short? I guess not--unless--you're the one who hasn't time. And even then I don't think I could be kept from boring you with letters."
"I shall certainly want to hear what you all are doing," she answered.
She was thinking about this plan when she went up-stairs to bed an hour later. Jeff had stopped her at the foot of the stairs to say, "I'd just like a good secure promise from you about that letter-writing. I'll enjoy the time that's left a lot better if I know it isn't coming to a regular jumping-off place at the end. Will you promise to write regularly?"
She paused on the bottom step, where she was just on a level with the straightforward dark eyes, half boy's, half man's, which met hers with the clear look of good comradeship. There was no sentimentality in the gaze, but undeniably strong liking and respect. She answered in Jeff's own spirit:
"I promise. I really shouldn't know how to do without hearing about your plans and the things that happen to you. I'm not a very good letter-writer, but I'll try to tell you things that will interest you."
"Good! I'm no flowery expert myself, but I fancy we can write as we talk, and that's enough for me. Good-night! Happy dreams."