holding her piece of bread-and-butter. It's so
delicious to have an excuse for eating out of doors, and besides, she
loved having to arrange things; she always felt she could do it so much
better than anybody else.

Four men in their shirt-sleeves stood grouped together on the garden
path. They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big
tool-bags slung on their backs. They looked impressive. Laura wished now
that she had not got the bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put
it, and she couldn't possibly throw it away. She blushed and tried to
look severe and even a little bit short-sighted as she came up to them.

"Good morning," she said, copying her mother's voice. But that sounded
so fearfully affected that she was ashamed, and stammered like a little
girl, "Oh--er--have you come--is it about the marquee?"

"That's right, miss," said the tallest of the men, a lanky, freckled
fellow, and he shifted his tool-bag, knocked back his straw hat and
smiled down at her. "That's about it."

His smile was so easy, so friendly that Laura recovered. What nice eyes
he had, small, but such a dark blue! And now she looked at the others,
they were smiling too. "Cheer up, we won't bite," their smile seemed
to say. How very nice workmen were! And what a beautiful morning! She
mustn't mention the morning; she must be business-like. The marquee.

"Well, what about the lily-lawn? Would that do?"

And she pointed to the lily-lawn with the hand that didn't hold the
bread-and-butter. They turned, they stared in the direction. A little
fat chap thrust out his under-lip, and the tall fellow frowned.

"I don't fancy it," said he. "Not conspicuous enough. You see, with a
thing like a marquee," and he turned to Laura in his easy way, "you want
to put it somewhere where it'll give you a bang slap in the eye, if you
follow me."

Laura's upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite
respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she
did quite follow him.

"A corner of the tennis-court," she suggested. "But the band's going to
be in one corner."

"H'm, going to have a band, are you?" said another of the workmen.
He was pale. He had a haggard look as his dark eyes scanned the
tennis-court. What was he thinking?

"Only a very small band," said Laura gently. Perhaps he wouldn't mind so
much if the band was quite small. But the tall fellow interrupted.

"Look here, miss, that's t