"I might furnish you with enough to sustain life for a short time," he suggested.
"Oh, could you?" she asked relievedly.
She was accustomed to having a table spread three times a day, and she cared little who furnished it.
"Just some milk," she said modestly, "and some bread and butter and—er—cookies. Then, you see, I won't have to go back till four o'clock when they come from the station, and maybe I can slip in without being missed."
"You just wait in the pavilion, and I'll see what the gardener's cottage can supply us."
He was back in fifteen minutes, chuckling as he lugged a big hamper.
"We'll have a picnic," he proposed.
"Oh, let's!" said Patty joyously. She did not mind eating with him in the least, for he had washed his hands, and appeared quite clean.
She helped him unpack the hamper and set the table in the little pavilion beside the fountain. He had lettuce sandwiches, a pat of cottage cheese, a jug of milk, orange marmalade, sugar cookies, and gingerbread hot from the oven.
"What a perfectly bully spread!" she cried.