“Then, I can count upon your help?”
“Certainly you can; for when it is a question of politeness, I won't be left behind, and if I give you my word, you can bet on me.”
Clarence was received with loud demonstrations of pleasure.
“Here he is,” said Pittikin, on arriving at the picnic ground; “I got him; but as he has some business to talk to us about, I promised him we would attend to that too, and mix business with pleasure, as it were. So, you talk to them girls, Mr. Darrell, while we old men see what can be done and how, and we'll let you know.”
Clarence was presented by Mr. Pittikin to Mrs. Pittikin, and this lady presented him to the company, saying that he must make himself at home, which Clarence did not see well how he could do.
But the young ladies could not boast of having often the good fortune to entertain a young gentleman as elegant, handsome and rich as Clarence, and they made good use of their golden opportunity. Sweet glances and complimentary expressions of pleasure, because the Darrell family were to be their neighbors, showered upon him, until he was ready to laugh outright. But he was too kind to have done anything so discourteous, and took it all in good part, thinking it was all meant in kindness.
“Come, let us show to Mr. Darrell our ice fountain; it is, I think, a great natural curiosity,” said Mrs. Romeo Hancock, the heroine of the day, being the lady in whose honor the hymeneal festivities took place. “Come girls and boys,” said she, and accompanied by Clarence, and followed by eight or ten others, she guided them to a little cave under a large oak, from which a muffled sound of tiny bells that seemed to tinkle and sigh and whisper, came forth. It seemed to Clarence as if the little fountain was in sympathy with the dispossessed owners, but did not dare to raise its timid voice in behalf of the vanquished, who no longer had rights in their patrimony, and must henceforth wander off disinherited, despoiled, forgotten.
“This is a lovely place,” said Clarence.
“Yes, and Mathews wanted to kill me for it,” said Romeo.
“Why so?” asked Clarence.