"Is it not glorious?" cried Cyn, like a child, in her exuberance.

"Why not camp out here, and stay all summer?" ecstatically suggested
Clem, as he fondled his fishing tackle.

"But it might not always be pleasant like this," said practical Mrs.
Simonson.

"When the sun shines we forget it may ever storm," said Jo, and looking
admiringly at Cyn as he spoke.

"Is our artist a philosopher, as well as all the rest we know he is?"
asked Cyn, laughing.

"A very little one; five feet six!" replied Jo.

"Well, we will have no shadows to-day," said Cyn.

"No shadows to-day!" echoed Jo; then turning to Mrs. Simonson, asked, "I
hope you do not still regret Miss Kling!"

"I suppose she would spoil it all!" that good lady committed herself
enough to say.

"Well, really, I must say," remarked Celeste, who now gave herself many
airs, and evidently looked upon Cyn and Nattie as commonplace creatures,
_not_ engaged!--"I must say, now that you are speaking of her, that she
does _Kling_ in a way that is not pleasant sometimes. She actually annoys
pa!"

"I thought she entertained a high regard for The Tor--for your father,"
said mischievous Cyn.

"That is exactly it!" replied Celeste. "_Too_ high a regard! Truly, she
behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate
in a woman, you know!" with sublime unconsciousness of ever having
indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! "Such an old creature,
too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and
stockings! Poor pa actually has to lock himself in his room sometimes!"

The vision of "poor pa" thus pursued was too much for the gravity of
the company, and there was a general laugh.

"It is true," asserted Celeste. "Now; isn't it, Ralfy?" appealing to her
betrothed with appropriate bashfulness.

Everybody stared at this. No one before ever really knew that Quimby
possessed a front door to his name, and he, as surprised as any one at
the cognomen Love had discovered, fell back on a rolling log, and
clutched his legs to that extent that they must have been black and blue
for a week afterwards.

Clem saved the discomfited "Ralfy" the necessity of replying, by
interposing with,

"Come! come! let us not talk on such incongruous subjects this lovely
day! let us rather talk sentiment!" and he gave a prodigious wink in
Jo's direction.

"I fear we are not a very sentimental party!" laughed Cyn; adding
mischievously, "except, of course, Qu