h the food as a
centrepiece. Betty had spread a sheet of white paper, and on it had
arranged the pasties according to their length.

"You need not have waited for me," said Kitty, annoyed at having her
dreams so broken in upon. "We have each got our own, and can eat them
when we like."

"But we never do begin until we all begin together," said Betty
reproachfully, "It would seem dreadfully mean; besides, we want you to
say which is my pasty and which Dan's. The letter has been broken on
one, and knocked right off another. I carried them ever and ever so
carefully, so it can't be my fault. Don't you think this is meant for a
'D,' and that one"--holding out the largest--"without any letter at all,
is mine?"

Dan felt so sure of getting his rights that he lay quite undisturbed,
throwing bits of moss into the water, and left the others to settle the
dispute.

"No, I don't," said Kitty, without the slightest hesitation.
"Dan always has the largest, whether there is a letter on it or not, and
you always have the smallest but one."

Betty accepted the decision without dispute. She had really not
expected any other, but she liked to assert herself now and then.

"I can't see," she said musingly, "why you should be expected to want
less to eat if you are only ten than if you are twelve. It seems to me
so silly. It isn't your age that makes you hungry."

As a rule the others left Betty to find the answer to her own arguments,
so she expected none from them. She got none now. They were all too
busy and too hungry to argue. Tony alone was not eating. He was
sitting with his pasty in one hand, while the other one was full of
anemones that he had gathered on his way, intending to take them home to
Fanny; but already the pretty delicate heads had begun to droop, and
Tony was gazing with troubled eyes at them. He loved flowers so much he
could never refrain from gathering them, but the clasp of his hot little
hand was almost always fatal, and then he was grieved and remorseful.

Kitty, watching him, knew well what was in his mind. He looked up
presently and caught her eye.

"I think I would put them in the river, if I were you, dear," she said.
"You see we shan't get home for hours yet, and they will be quite dead
long before that. If you put them in the river they will revive."

"Won't it be drowning them?" asked Tony anxiously.

"No; they will float."

"I know what I will do," he said, cheered by an ide