“Here you are, and late too,” cried Evangeline. “I had hoped to meet you nearer the village. Come, we’ll return to the farm, and then my father has given permission for us to take the big, kind Alphonse and picnic on Blomidon. Will that not be a fine holiday? And on a day so fair!”
SO GABRIEL CLIMBED IN BETWEEN RUTH AND EVANGELINE, AND THE LITTLE PARTY HASTENED ON TOWARD THE CAPE
“We only got here this minute,” said Rose. “How sweet you look, Evangeline! We are so glad to meet you. Ruth said she always loved you better than any other heroine in ... in ...” Rose couldn’t quite remember what she had intended saying, so she ended with a skip of joy, and the statement that a picnic on Blomidon was a wonderful idea, and who was Alphonse?
“Alphonse is the dog. Father will let me go anywhere with him, so big and strong and wise he is, and so brave and gentle. Do you like dogs?”
Of course they did, and all three of them chatting at once, they trudged merrily along the road toward the farm, roomy and generous, with big barns stretching round three sides of a square, with dove-cotes and hen-houses and kennels, and the wide-eaved gracious house in front, facing the sea.
As they pushed open the white gate of the house-place, a hearty-looking white-haired man called to them from an open window.
“Welcome, mes petites. Evangeline, offer thy friends some milk and a slice of bread and cheese, and then be off with you all, for I do not want you to be late getting home.”
A table stood under a great, shady sycamore by the door, with chairs about it, and here Evangeline spread a simple meal of bread and cheese and berries, with a huge pitcher of creamy milk. Bees murmured all about them, butterflies flitted past, and the clear air seemed to shimmer above the meadows and orchards and over the gleaming sea.
“I think this is the loveliest place in the whole world,” decided Ruth, sighing with content. “Oh, are we going to drive?” for in the yard two men were harnessing a pretty sorrel horse to a wagon with two seats, singing as they did so.