on hour brought back the stragglers, and
with them Olly, trotting contentedly along, clinging to Halloway's hand,
meek as any lamb.

"What were you doing when you cried out so a little while ago?" asked
Gerald, going up to the child.

Olly looked at her with instant defiance in his eyes. "I hurt my foot."

"You know perfectly well you can't deceive me, Olly. Tell me the truth.
What mischief were you at?"

"I tell you I hurt my foot, and it hurt like mischief, and that's all the
mischief there was. I wish it had been _your_ foot, and I wouldn't have
cried a bit."

Halloway was turning aside, but Gerald appealed to him. "Is he telling
the truth?"

"Yes," answered Denham, dryly. "He was racing with the Anthony boys and
fell, but, as you see, he's right enough now."

"Ya-ah!" said Olly, and leered into her face with brotherly disrespect.
"I'll tell you a lie next time if you'd rather. Ya-ah!"

Gerald looked as if she were going to shake him on the spot, and to
prevent any such catastrophe Denham suddenly seized the little fellow and
put him through a number of acrobatic feats in breathless succession,
till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was
laughing, even Gerald. Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some
marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to
the assembled company, to his and their entire satisfaction, that the
impossible is after all sometimes possible, when luncheon was announced
by the ringing of a cow-bell, and a gay onslaught upon the usual picnic
table, rich in luxuries and poor in necessities, superseded for the nonce
all less material forms of amusement.

Later in the afternoon Halloway wandered off from the rest for one of the
solitary strolls that he preferred to companionship as being less
lonely,--a feeling often experienced when fate and not choice appoints
one's comrades,--and returning leisurely along the banks of the lake,
he came upon a little group of picnickers, and stopped unperceived beyond
them, to enjoy for a while that comfortable sense of being in the world
yet out of it, which is the birthright of all spectatorship. Gerald and
Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of
the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and
slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough
picture for any artist. Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an assortment of
sturdy