Bob Blagdon had preceded his guests by half an hour, and was already
at the scene of the picnic. Fate, or perhaps the weather bureau at
Washington, had favored him with just the conditions he would have
wished for. The night was hot without heaviness; in the forenoon of
that day there had been a shower, just wet enough to keep the surfaces
of roads from rising in dust. It was now clear and bestarred, and
perhaps a shade less dark than when he had started. Furthermore, it was
so still that candles burned without flickering. He surveyed his
preparations with satisfaction. And because he was fastidious in
entertainment this meant a great deal.

A table thirty feet long, and low to the ground so that people sitting
on rugs or cushions could eat from it with comfort, stood beneath the
giant red oak that gave a name to the hollow. The white damask with
which it was laid and the silver and cut glass gleamed in the light of
dozens of candles. The flowers were Marechal Niel roses in a long bank
of molten gold.

Except for the lanterns at the serving tables, dimly to be seen through
a dense hedgelike growth of Kalmia latifolia, there were no other lights
in the hollow; so that the dinner-table had the effect of standing in a
cave; for where the gleam of the candles ended, the surrounding darkness
appeared solid like a wall.

It might have been a secret meeting of smugglers or pirates, the
Georgian silver on the table representing years of daring theft; it
seemed as if blood must have been spilled for the wonderful glass and
linen and porcelain. Even those guests most hardened in luxury and
extravagance looked twice at Mr. Bob Blagdon's picnic preparations
before they could find words with which to compliment him upon them; and
the less experienced were beside themselves with enthusiasm and delight.
But Mr. Bob Blagdon was wondering what little Miss Blythe would think
and say, and he thought it unkind of her, under the circumstances, to be
the last to arrive. Unkind, because her doing so was either a good omen
or an evil one, and he could not make up his mind which.

The guests were not homogeneously dressed. Some of the men were in
dinner clothes; some were in full evening dress; some wore dinner coats
above riding breeches and boots; some had come bareheaded, some with
hats which they did not propose to remove. Half the women were in low
neck and short sleeves; one with short curly hair was breeched and
booted like a man; ot