During their circuitous meanderings, two young men joined Miss Josey and were duly presented to her protégé. They were fine young fellows, and very pleasant, too, but Mell continued so preoccupied in the vain racking of her brain, trying to imagine what had become of Jerome and Clara Rutland, that she did not catch their names, and replied to their efforts at conversation with monosyllabic remarks. One of them, a merry-tempered, straightforward, stalwart young chap, armed with rod and bait, asked her, with a flattering degree of warmth, if she wouldn’t go with them a-fishing; but reflecting if she did so, she would in all likelihood be out of the way of seeing Jerome for hours to come, Mell declined without circumlocution, glad to get rid of him on the pretext of having promised to assist Miss Josey in her onerous duties, as commissary of subsistence. Discouraged, the young fisherman bowed and left.
“Such a pretty girl,” he remarked to his companion. “It’s a pity she doesn’t know what to say!”
Think of Mell Creecy not knowing what to say! The girl who was always saying things nobody else had ever thought of saying. Such is the pretty pass to which an unhappy love may bring the brightest girl! And, after all, she saw absolutely nothing of Jerome until all those wagon upon wagon loads of baskets had been ransacked, and their tempting contents emptied out upon the festive board, giving forth grateful suggestions of the coming mid-day meal.
While squeezing lemons, flushed and more than ever anxious, deft of hand, but uneasy in mind, the buggy containing Jerome and Miss Rutland dashed into the grove.
“We’ve been all the way to Pudney,” called out the young lady, holding up to view some tied-up boxes, “and here are the prizes.”
“All right,” responded Miss Josey, “but do let us have the ice. The prizes are of no consequence to a famishing people, but the dinner is, and we are about ready.”
“She’s powerfully interested in the prizes,” commented a girl at Mell’s elbow, “but she has a good right to be.”
“Why?” inquired Mell.
“Because she is going to be crowned queen of love and beauty.”
“How do you know?”