ing a couple of hours ago that we were even then
approaching our destination, and we seem to be getting no nearer
rapidly--"

"Oh, do try to be sensible," cried Mollie, for the second time. "If you
would only have some patience--"

"Never heard the word," declared Will with a grin, and Mollie made a face
at him--a very disrespectful face.

"Well, but when--" Will was insisting plaintively when Betty interrupted
him with a cry of delight.

"Look, people," she said, breaking away from them and running up the
rather steep bank lightly.

"This isn't the spot we picked out, but it's twice as pretty. Big rocks
for tables--and everything."

"Especially everything," commented Allen, his eyes twinkling.

"Oh, boy!" cried Roy ecstatically, setting down the hamper that had been
his share and beginning to examine its contents without further delay.
"Chicken! Ham sandwiches! Biscuits! Jelly--"

"Say, get out of that!" cried Frank, snatching the hamper away with a
vigor born of fear. "What kind of manners do you call that?"

"They're as good as yours," retorted the outraged Roy hotly. "Besides,
there's another hamper, isn't there?"

"Goodness, they seem to think they can have a whole basket apiece," cried
Amy Blackford in dismay.

"Well, I guess they've got another think coming," said Allen, inelegantly,
placing himself with outstretched arms before the two precious hampers as
though he were guarding a gold mine. "Now let him come who dares. Only
over my dead body--"

"Oh, what's the use of spoiling our perfectly good party," complained
Grace. "Can't we ever begin to enjoy ourselves but what somebody starts
taking all the joy out of life by talking about killing somebody, or
something--"

"Never mind, Gracie," Frank soothed her, nibbling a chicken bone with
great relish. "You'll get over it. It may take time--"

"Silence," commanded Mollie, raising a pickle fork threateningly. "Else in
a twinkling I will split thee to the heart--"

"Goodness, she's got it, too," sighed Grace drawlingly.

"What?" asked Mollie briskly, "I'm always interested in my symptoms--"

"It isn't a disease, you goose," drawled Grace. "Unless," she added, as a
second thought, "you can call insanity a disease--"

"Well, you ought to know," retorted Mollie, as she proceeded to use the
pickle fork to advantage. "What does your doctor say?"

"Now who's bringing war into the party, I'd like to know?" asked Will,
helping himself to his ninth bis