“Why, then, I shall go to the picnic, too. I adore picnics!” cried Ray Chester.
“But you are not invited. It’s a Sunday school picnic, you see, Ray, and you are not acquainted with anybody.”
“I’ll invite myself, and get acquainted with everybody there in less than an hour,” he answered, gayly; and calling to Mrs. Gray, who was watering her geraniums in the yard, he said:
“Aren’t you going to the picnic to-morrow?”
“Perhaps so—only I shall have to leave you a cold dinner,” she said, hesitatingly, coming up to the vine-wreathed porch in whose shadow the lovers were sitting.
“I’ll go with you if you let me!” cried Ray; “and you will introduce me to everybody there as your new boarder.”
“And to Miss Tuttle in particular; and mind you show her much attention, Ray, for then she will ask you to Wheatlands,” laughed Leola, falling into the spirit of the thing, for it came to her suddenly that by this means she and Ray could go on courting under her guardian’s very nose without being suspected.
“Miss Tuttle is so vain she will easily think Ray is in love with her,” she thought, merrily, and so they all laid their plans for to-morrow.
The picnic came off in a beautiful grove, and Widow Gray’s new boarder kept his word, and got acquainted with everybody there inside of an hour.
He was specially gracious to the smiling Miss Tuttle, who herself presented him to Leola, saying: