"Hum!" said he lamely.
"I shan't forget that mechanician!" said Diane decidedly.
"This now," vowed Philip uncomfortably, "is a real fish!"
Diane laughed, a soft clear laugh that to Philip's prejudiced ears had more of music in it than the murmur of the river or the clear, sweet piping of the woodland birds.
"It is," she agreed readily. "Johnny caught him in the river and I cooked him."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Philip, inspecting the morsel on his wooden plate with altered interest, "you don't—you can't mean it!"
"Why not?" inquired Diane with lifted eyebrows.
Philip didn't know and said so, but he glanced furtively at the girl by the fire and marveled.
"Well," he said a little later with a sigh of utter content, "this is Arcadia, isn't it!"
"It's a beautiful spot!" nodded Diane happily, glancing at the scarlet tendrils of a wild grapevine flaming vividly in the sunlight among the trees. There was yellow star grass along the forest path, she said absently, and yonder by the stump of a dead tree a patch of star moss woven of myriad emerald shoots; the delicate splashes of purple here and there in the forest carpet were wild geranium.