The man—he certainly looked like a tramp, as far as his clothes were concerned, but his face was clean—turned toward the girls with a smile.
"Your lunch!" he exclaimed, and his voice was not unmusical, "how fortunate!"
He did not say whether it was fortunate for them—or himself.
"We—we forgot it. We left it here," explained Mollie. "That is, I left it here."
"That is—unfortunate," said the man. "It seems—it seems to be a fairly substantial lunch," and he moved the bag up and down.
"It ought to be—for four of us," breathed Amy.
"Allow me," spoke the man, and with a bow he handed the missing lunch to Betty. The girls said afterward that her hand did not tremble a bit as she accepted it. And then the Little Captain did something most unexpected.
"Perhaps you are hungry, too," she said, with one of her winning smiles, a smile that seemed to set her face in a glow of friendliness. "We are on a tramping tour—I mean a walking tour," she hastily corrected herself, feeling that perhaps the man would object to the word "tramp." She went on:
"We are on a walking tour, visiting friends and relatives. We generally take a lunch at noon."
"Yes, that seems to be the universal custom," agreed the man. "That is, for some persons," and he smiled, showing his white teeth.