"Those bothersome girls again!" whispered Billy Brittain.
"The Misses Pokeby and the Misses Sinclair have the honor to--to-- Oh, Clara, what was I to say?" asked Ollie, blushing tremendously.
"Cut it short, please; we're so hungry," put in Charlie.
"Well, I will. We want you boys to come and get some supper which _we_ have prepared for you--a sort of picnic, you know."
The boys gave a shout, flung down their traps, and made for the water to wash hands and faces, only Ted looked ruefully at his string of fish.
"What is the matter, Ted?" said Lil, coming up, with her face all flushed from being over the fire.
"Why, I was wishing we could have some of these for supper; but it's no matter, after all."
"Oh yes, it is. If you'll scrape and fix them, I can put them in the frying-pan in a jiffy."
Never had the boys tasted anything half so nice as that supper; they ate till they could eat no more. Lil scrambled eggs, and fried fish, and made tea, till Ollie insisted upon it that she should sit down and be served like a princess. Then they sang, and danced, and played games till Mrs. Pokeby and Miss Sinclair came after them, and carried them all home in Mr. Pokeby's big wagon.
"Really I never had more fun in my life," said Lil to Mrs. Pokeby, as they bade her good-by at the farm gate; "and I am so much obliged to you for letting us give that supper, though the getting it ready was the best part."
"Do you think so? Perhaps that's the reason boys have such good times."
[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 47, September 21.]
But before the mountains were quite bare there came a time when even Conny ceased to interest the family, for Joe was coming home from college. Joe, the handsome young student, whom father, mother, Betty, and the servants all agreed to worship. He was to bring with him a friend, and from garret to cellar the whole house was astir to do them honor.
Conny was in the kitchen, polishing the silver, and listening to Biddy's raptures. "Sure, thin, Conny, and it's a young gintleman ye'll be seein' as there isn't the likes in ahl this miserable coontry, bad luck till it!"
"Indade, thin, I couldn't be sayin' whidder it's likest the masther or the misthress he is. Tahl an' straight, an' sooch a look in the two eyes of 'im."