letter, and when the two young men joined the girls at noon they found a
broad flat rock in the woods had been covered with a tablecloth and
spread with a tempting meal. The girls had gathered great bunches of
that beautiful flower pink laurel, and a cluster of it decked the
table. After dinner our imperious Alice insisted that they visit the
mill-pond once more, and when they returned at night, with two baskets
of trout, and laurel and pond lilies enough to stock a flower stand, the
day was voted an eminent success.

Frank made one error, however, for just before they left the mill he
slipped away unobserved, and finding the miller, put a bit of paper into
his hand with the remark, "Keep this to pay for the boat," and left him
hurriedly. When the old man made examination he found he had a
five-dollar bill. To surprises of this kind he was not accustomed, and
before noon the next day there wasn't a man, woman, or child in Sandgate
who had not heard of it.

CHAPTER XVIII

VILLAGE GOSSIP

"What care I what the world may say,
So long as I have my way to-day?--
For this dear old world,
This queer old world,
With tongue like sands of the sea,
Is never so gay
As when wagging away,
And talking of you and of me."

That evening Frank begged for music, and Alice sung for two long hours.
At least they might have seemed long to any but an enraptured young man
who had for the entire day been kept from uttering one of the many
love-lorn words that filled his heart. Albert, who had been informed by
Alice that if he deserted her for a single moment that evening or the
next he need never bring his friend there again, sat outside on the
porch and close by the window, smoking incessantly and smiling to
himself at the clever tactics of his charming but coy sister. When the
concert was ended he observed, "If there's one song in the house that
you have not sung, Alice, I wish you would sing it. I hate to have you
omit any."

"I have only sung what I was asked to," she replied; "is not that so,
Mr. Nason?"

"That is true," replied he boldly, "and you have not sung one that I
wouldn't enjoy hearing again to-night."

"Oh, I have enjoyed them all," said Albert, "only I thought you might
have missed one, and as Frank remarked coming home that he was hungry
for music, I wanted him satisfied."

The next day, as usual, they attended church, only this time all three
walked back togethe