“It was too little to be any use, anyway. And I never could kill anything just for the fun of killing it.”
Here was a new light on Edina’s true character. How cruelly the girls at the Hall had misjudged her, thought Billie. At heart Edina was kindly and gentle, sympathetic and loyal. How gently she had removed the poor little tortured fish from the hook! And yet the girls still called her the “lion cub!”
“She’s a darling,” thought Billie warmly. “And I’m glad I’ve stood by her. I’d do it all over again if I had to!”
After a while the young folks resumed their stroll and wound up finally at the site of the campfire.
Here they discovered that their appetites had miraculously revived. Whereupon they fell upon what remained of the provisions and gobbled them up.
“What a swarm of locusts we are!” chuckled Laura, regarding the ruins of their feast. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to eat again.”
“Until to-morrow morning,” observed Billie drily.
The premature shadows of autumn were falling over the lake when they reluctantly decided that it was time to go back.
Like all good woodsmen, they cleaned up the scene of their picnic until everything was as neat and orderly as they had found it.
“I hate to go,” said Vi, looking back longingly. “It’s probably the last picnic we’ll have this year.”