that was purely personal was unwarranted as it
was intolerable.

"He always has such good cream-tarts," explained Split.

"Well, he can have 'em and keep 'em," declared Sissy, savagely, turning
her back as Crosby yodeled a greeting and waved his hat gaily to her.

Cody grinned. "I think that kid better stay at home. It won't be much
picnic for him, will it, Sissy?"

Sissy sniffed. "He's Split's company," she said loftily. "She'll make
things pleasant for him."

But Crosby, glad to be among the enticing Madigans at any price, and
innocently joying in the picnic spirit that possessed him, came whooping
to his fate.

"Say," he said eagerly, putting down his basket with the air of one who
has a good story to tell, "do you know, I almost got caught this
morning. Ma said I wasn't to go, but I bet I wouldn't stay at home. So I
told Delia to put up my lunch last night, and to put in a lot of those
cream-tarts you like, Sissy--you used to like, Sissy...."

But Sissy, actuated by a delicate desire not to interfere in the
slightest with Split's plans for the entertainment of her guest, was
deep in conversation with Jack Cody. Crosby's jaw fell. He saw her give
her round tin lunch-bucket--the one he had so often carried to school
for her--to Cody, to sling with his own upon a leather strap. And as he
watched her start up the ravine carrying one end of the strap, and the
washerwoman's boy the other, he wondered passionately within himself at
the faithlessness and ingratitude of women.

Wasn't it enough to have a reckoning with Madam Pemberton at the end of
his day, without having that precious time utterly spoiled? He felt like
turning back. Sissy knew well that there could be no picnic for him
within the pale of her displeasure. The mountain air might be never so
sweet with the wild sage perfuming it; the sun striping the shadowy town
below with bloody bands might be never so promising; the mountain's
peak, soft and deceitfully near, might be never so tempting--with Sissy
chattering gaily in advance, ostentatiously ignorant of his very
existence, the glory was cut out of Crosby's morn. It seemed, too, to
him that he had never been so fond of her. His mother's disapproval of
this Madigan since a certain episode (to avenge which cruel Sissy's
thirst could never be slaked) had put the last touch to his devotion.
That matron's pleasure in their intercourse hitherto had been the one
drawback to his delight in it. In his eyes, h