CHAPTER X
"The gentle art of cooking in a chafing-dish," discoursed Captain John Rayburn, lightly stirring in a silver basin the ingredients of the cream sauce he was making for the chopped chicken which stood at hand in a bowl, "is one particularly adapted to the really intelligent masculine mind. No noise, no fuss, no worry, no smoke, everything systematic,"--with a practised hand he added the cream little by little to the melted butter and flour--"business-like and practical. It is a pleasure to contemplate the delicate growth of such a dish as this which I am preparing. It is----"
"You may have thickening enough for all that cream," Celia interrupted, doubtfully, watching her uncle's cookery with an anxious eye.
"And you may have sufficient mental poise to be able to lecture on cookery and do the trick at the same time," supplemented Doctor Churchill, his eyes also on the chafing-dish. In fact, everybody's eyes were on the chafing-dish.
The entire Birch family, Doctor Churchill, Lanse's friend, Mary Atkinson; Jeff's comrade, Carolyn Houghton; and Just's inseparable, Norman Carter--Just scorned girls, and when asked to choose whom he would have as a guest for Captain Rayburn's picnic, mentioned Norman with an air of finality--sat about a large rustic table upon a charming spot of greensward among the trees of a little island four miles down the river.
A great bowl of pond-lilies decorated the centre of the table; and bunches of the same flowers, tied with long yellow ribbons, lay at each plate.
When Captain Rayburn entertained he always did it in style. And since this picnic had been especially designed to celebrate the home-coming of the travellers, a week after their arrival, no pains had been spared to make the festival one to be remembered.
Mrs. Birch was in the seat of honour, a position which she graced. In a summer gown of white, her face round and glowing as it had not been in years, she seemed the central flower of a most attractive bouquet. Mr. Birch looked about him with appreciative eyes.
"I don't think I could attend to the chafing-dish with any certainty of result," he remarked. "I am too much occupied in observing the guests. It strikes me that nowhere, either in New Mexico or Colorado, did I see any people approaching those before me in interest and attractiveness. Except one," he amended, as a general laugh greeted this extraordinary statement, "and even she never seemed to me quite so----" He hesitated.