or lunch.

It was a merry meal; and if the fare was no better than that of most
township hotels, the spirits of the party were too high to trouble
about such trifles as tough meat, watery puddings, and weary butter
that bore out Wally's remarks about the heat by threatening to float
away on a sea of its own oil. Everything was rose colour in Norah's
estimation that day. She sat by Jim and beamed across the table at her
father and Wally. Even Cecil found himself at times included in the
beam, and took it meekly, for the happy face was infectious, while the
frank delight of the boys in having her with them again was to a
certain extent educational to the outsider. There was no lack of
manliness in Jim's strong, handsome face. If he found it worth his
while, Cecil reflected, to make such a fuss over a child, it might be
possible that she was not altogether a person to be snubbed. So he was
unusually affable to his small cousin, and lunch passed off very
successfully.

Afterwards there was shopping to be done. A long list of groceries had
been made out by Mrs. Brown, who professed herself far too busy with
Christmas preparations to come in person, and had laid the
responsibility on Norah, not without misgivings. It was, perhaps,
fortunate that the storekeepers were able to rise to the contents of
the list unaided, for Norah was scarcely in a condition to grapple with
problems relating to anything so ordinary as groceries, and found it
indeed difficult to read out her list coherently, with Jim standing
sentinel in the doorway and Wally wandering about the shop sampling all
he could find, from biscuits to brooms. On one occasion, when making a
special effort to preserve her dignity, she came to the item "flaked
oatmeal," and asked the shopman in rather frigid tones for "floked
atemeal," which had a paralysing effect on the unoffending storekeeper,
while Wally retired to the shelter of a pile of saucepans, and
shrieked. Thus the business of necessary purchases passed off
cheerfully; and then what Norah termed the more interesting
shops--saddlers' and stationers'--were visited, with a view to Christmas.
Finally Jim brought the buggy from the hotel, and they picked up their
lighter parcels.

"Surely that's all?" Jim inquired, as Norah and Wally came out of the
fruiterer's laden with bags of assorted sizes, which they dumped
thankfully into the buggy, with the immediate result that a bag of
peaches burst, and had to be rescue