Cora guided the car to the side of the road. The girls got out and stretched their cramped limbs with a sigh of relief. The lunch basket was taken from beneath the seat and carried to a cool and shady spot beneath a clump of great trees that stood a few feet away from the road. From a brook that rippled over the stones with a musical murmur, they brought a supply of water. A robe from the car was spread out on the grass, and napkins from the basket served as miniature tablecloths.
Then Mary’s offerings were brought to light, and amply maintained that person’s reputation for culinary skill. Lettuce sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, fried chicken legs, lemon tarts and fruit followed each other in rapid succession. Then, too, there was a thermos bottle filled with hot, fragrant coffee.
Their morning in the open air had sharpened the appetites of the girls, and they ate with a zest that would have made a dyspeptic turn green with envy. Bess, to be sure, tried feebly to bear in mind her rules for dieting, but the temptation was too great, and for that once anyway her good resolutions went by the board.
“I could die happy now,” she murmured, between bites of a lemon tart.
“You will die anyway if you eat much more,” said her sister severely. “Bess Robinson, I’m ashamed of you.”
“You’ll have to take twenty rolls to-morrow instead of ten, to make up for this,” laughed Cora.
“To-morrow’s a new day,” replied Bess mutinously. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
“She’s a hopeless case, I’m afraid,” sighed Belle. “But come along now, girls, and gather up these things. We want to get to the house of Cora’s aunt before it gets dark.”
“Behold a stranger cometh,” remarked Cora, as a horse and buggy came in sight, with a young man holding the reins.
The vehicle approached rapidly, and the eyes of the driver lighted up as he caught sight of the three girls. Instead of driving by, he reined up at the roadside and jumping from the buggy made his way toward the little party.