"I'll run up to the store and get some of those little empty fruit boxes; Jim'll give 'em to me. I saw a pile of 'em lying outside. You wait here." So Mary waited. If it should be discovered that she had gone off with Ellis in the _Leona_, she would at least have the berries as an evidence of what they had gone for. Mary was getting more and more crafty.
The end of it all was that they did row over to Jones's Island. A barren looking, uninhabited spot it seemed from a distance. Barren of trees it was, but when one once reached it there were great patches of strawberries, clumps of wild roses and bayberry bushes, pinky-white clover, deliciously sweet, tiny wild white violets and many other lovely things. Then, too, it was the haunt of birds which, undisturbed, had built their nests there year after year.
It did not take long to pick as many berries as they could eat and as many as they wanted to carry away, and then when the sky was shining gold and pink and blue above and the water shining blue and pink and gold beneath, they started home, reaching there just as Luella, standing on the porch, was watching earnestly for the little girl's return. Ellis had parted from his companion at the point where their roads separated. His supper hour was over long ago, though he did not say so, his parting words being: "I'll let you know first thing if I hear anything of the breastpin."
"Thank you so much," said Mary. "I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed the afternoon."
"I thought maybe you'd stayed at the Whartons' for supper," said Luella, as Mary came up. "Land's sake, where did you get all them berries? I know you didn't get 'em about here. There, now, I said I seen you to Green's. That's just what I said. Did you have a good time? Whartons' is real good about their la'nch, ain't they? Now there's Roops hardly ever takes anybody out but their own folks. I call that mean. Come on in and get your supper. Them berries is so fresh I guess they'll keep till tomorrow, and you'll want the others to have some. I cal'late you've eat your fill of 'em anyway."
Glad that Luella's flow of talk did not demand answers, Mary followed her into the house and when the young woman drew up her chair sociably to eat supper with her, Mary did not feel any resentment, so happy was she that no explanations were expected.