The evening soon opened promisingly for Marge, for Phil took soup a second time,--a proceeding which inflicted upon Mrs. Tramlay several moments of uncontrolled annoyance and caused profound silence around the table. But Lucia rapidly recovered; desperate cases required desperate remedies; so she said,--
“Phil, do you remember that dinner you once made us in the grove by the beach?”
“Indeed I do,” said Phil. “I never shall forget it.” And he told the truth; for Lucia’s look of horror when he brought from the fire a piece of board piled high with roasted clams had been one of the few great mental dampers of his life.
“You made us forks from dried twigs,” said Lucia. “I kept mine as a memento; it is hanging over my mantel now, with a bow of blue ribbon around it.”
Marge frowned perceptibly; Mrs. Tramlay looked horrified; but Phil’s face lightened so quickly that Lucia’s little heart gave a gay bound.
“Why didn’t you ever give a clam-bake on Sunday,--the only day I could be there?” asked Tramlay. “I’d give more for such a meal out of doors than for the best dinner that Delmonico could spread.”
“Edgar!” gasped Mrs. Tramlay. It did not reach him, though the look that accompanied it passed in its full force from the foot of the table to the head.
“Why, Sunday,” said Phil, with some hesitation,--“Sunday is--Sunday.”
“Quite true,” said the host. “It is in the country, at least; I wish ’twas so here.”
“Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, “don’t make Mr. Hayn think we are heathens. You know we never fail to go to service on Sunday.”
“Yes,” said Tramlay; “we’re as good Pharisees as any other family in New York.”
“And after that dinner in the woods,” continued Lucia, “we went for pond-lilies: don’t you remember? I do believe I should have been drowned in that awful pond if you hadn’t caught me.”
Again Marge’s brows gathered perceptibly.
“He merely drew her aside from a muddy place,” whispered Mrs. Tramlay.
“Well, this is interesting,” said Tramlay, at the other end of the table. “Hayn, are there many places out your way where silly girls are likely to be drowned if they are allowed to roam about without a keeper?”
“Quite a number,” said Phil, as seriously as if his host expected a list of the Haynton ponds and their relative depths. “For instance, Boddybanks Pond is about----”