Next moment Tom and Teddy burst into the open, out of breath, as usual, tumbling over each other and over their words in their eagerness.

"Hallo! Hallo, Quicksilver! Are we late?"

"I say! we stopped to get some apples. Did you remember apples? I knew you wouldn't, so we--"

"And we found a woodchuck--"

"Oh, I say, Mary, you should have seen him! He sat up in the door of his hole, and--"

"Salt! you forgot the salt, Ballast, and Mammy sent it. Saccarappa!

it's all spilled into my pocket. Do you mind a few crumbs?"

"Boys! boys!" said Mary, who had been trying in vain to make herself heard, "do be quiet! I want to introduce you to Miss Packard. Clarice, these are my brothers, Tom and Teddy."

The boys had no hats to take off,--they wore hats on Sunday, though!--but they bowed with the short, decisive duck of fourteen (indeed, Tom was fifteen, but he did not look it), and tried to compose their features. "Do!" they murmured; then, at a severe look from Mary, they came forward, and each extended a grimy paw and shook Clarice's gloved hand solemnly, leaving marks on it. The ceremony over, they breathed again, and dropped on the gra.s.s.

"Isn't this jolly?" they cried. "Ready for grub? We are half starved."

Clarice's look was almost tragic as she turned upon Sue. "Are these the boys you meant?" she asked in a whisper that was fully audible.

"These--little--ragam.u.f.fins?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "EACH CAME FORWARD AND SHOOK CLARICE'S GLOVED HAND SOLEMNLY."]

Fortunately, Mary was talking to Teddy, and did not hear. Sue did, and for the first time her admiration for Clarice received a shock. She raised her head and looked full at Clarice, her hazel eyes full of fire. "I don't understand you," she said. "These are my friends; I invited them because you asked me to."

Clarice's eyes fell; she colored, and muttered something, Sue did not hear what; then she put her hand to her side and drew a short, gasping breath.

In an instant Sue's anger was gone. "Boys!" she cried hastily. "Tom, bring some water, quick! She's going to faint."

Clarice was now leaning back with closed eyes. "Never mind me," she murmured softly; "go on and enjoy yourselves. I shall be--better--soon, I dare say."

Splash! came a shower of water in her face. Tom, in eager haste, had stumbled over Sue's foot, and his whole dipperful of water was spilled over the fainting maiden. She sprang to her feet with amazing agility.

"You stupid, stupid boy!" she cried, stamping her foot, her eyes blazing with fury. "You did it on purpose; you know you did! Get away this minute!"

Then, while all looked on in silent amaze, she burst into tears, and declared she would go home that instant. She would not stay there to be made a fool of by odious, rude, vulgar boys.

There was dead silence for a moment. Then Tom said, slowly and solemnly (no one could be so solemn as Tom when he tried): "I beg your pardon, Miss Packard; I am very sorry. I will go away if you wish it, but I hope you will stay."

Sue wanted to hug Tom, but refrained. (She had decided a little while ago that she was getting too big to hug the boys any more.) "Tom, you are a darling," she whispered in his ear--"a perfect dear duck! And you can use the telephone all you like to-morrow. Clarice," she added aloud, "he has apologized; Tom has apologized, and that is all he can do, isn't it? You are all right now, aren't you?"

Clarice hesitated. Her dignity was on the one hand, her dinner on the other; she was hungry, and she yielded.

"If he didn't really mean to," she began ungraciously; but Mary cut her short with what the boys called her full-stop manner.

"I think there has been quite enough of this foolishness," she said curtly. "Sue, will you pa.s.s the sandwiches? Have some chicken-pie, Clarice!"

A sage has said that food stops sorrow, and so it proved in this case.

The chicken-pie was good, and all the children felt wonderfully better after the second help all round. Tongues were loosed, and chattered merrily. The boys related with many chuckles their chase of the woodchuck, and how he finally escaped them, and they heard him laughing as he scuttled off.

"Well, he _was_ laughing--woodchuck laughter; you ought just to have heard him, Mary."

Sue made them all laugh by telling of her encounter with Katy and the milk-pan. Even Clarice warmed up after her second gla.s.s of shrub, and told them of the picnics they had at Saratoga, where she had been last year.

"That was why I was so surprised at this kind of picnic, dear," she said to Sue, with a patronizing air. "It's so different, you see. The last one I went to, there were--oh, there must have been sixty people at the very least. It was perfectly alegant! There were two four-in-hands, and lots of drags and tandems. I went in a dog-cart with Fred. You know--the one I told you about." She nodded mysteriously and simpered, and Sue flushed with delighted consequence.

"What did you take?" asked Lily, her mouth full of chicken.

"Oh, a caterer furnished the refreshments," said Clarice, airily.

"There was everything you can think of: salads, and ice-cream, and boned turkey, and all those things. Perfectly fine, it was! Everybody ate till they couldn't hardly move; it was alegant!"

"Didn't you do anything but just gob--I mean eat?" asked Mary.

"Oh, there was a band of music, of course; and we walked about some, and looked at the dresses. They were perfectly alegant! I wore a changeable taffeta, blue and red, and a red hat with blue birds in it.

Everybody said it was just as cute! The reporter for the 'Morning Howl' was there, and he said it was the handsomest costume at the picnic. He was a perfect gentleman, and everything I had on was in the paper next day."

"This is soul-stirring," said Tom (who did sometimes show that he was fifteen, though not often), "but didn't I hear something about toasts?"

Clarice looked vexed, but Mary took up the word eagerly. "Yes, to be sure, Tom; it is quite time for toasts. Fill the gla.s.ses again, Teddy!

Clarice, you are the guest of honor; will you give the first toast?"

Clarice shook her head, and muttered something about not caring for games.

"Then I will!" cried Sue; and she stood up, her eyes sparkling.

"I drink to Clarice!" she said. "I hope she will grow strong, and never have any heart again,--I mean any pain in it,--and that she will stay here a long, long time, till she grows up!"

Teddy choked over his gla.s.s, but the others said "Clarice!" rather soberly, and clinked their gla.s.ses together. Clarice, called upon for a speech in response to the toast, simpered, and said that Sue was too perfectly sweet for anything, but could think of nothing more. Then Tom was called upon. He rose slowly, and lifted his gla.s.s.

"I drink to the health of Quicksilver Sue!

May she shun the false, and seek the true!"

Mary gave him a warning glance, but Sue was enchanted. "Oh, Tom, how dear of you to make it in poetry!" she cried, flushing with pleasure.

"Wait; wait just a minute, and I'll make my speech."

She stood silent, holding up her gla.s.s, in which the sunbeams sparkled, turning the liquid to molten rubies; then she said rather shyly:

"I drink to Tom, the manly Hart, And wish him all the poet's art!"

This was received with great applause.

Mary's turn came next; but before she could speak, Clarice had sprung to her feet with a wild shriek. "A snake!" she cried; "a snake! I saw it! It ran close by my foot. Oh, I shall faint!"

Teddy clapped his hand to his pocket, and looked shamefaced.

"I thought I had b.u.t.toned him in safe," he said. "I'm awfully sorry.

The other one is in there all right; it was only the little one that got out."

But this was too much for Clarice. She declared that she must go home that instant; and after an outcry from Sue no one opposed her. The baskets were collected, the crumbs scattered for the birds, and the party started for home. Mary and her brothers led the way with Lily, Sue and Clarice following slowly behind with arms intertwined. Sue's face was a study of puzzled regret, self-reproach, and affection.