e sequel. She and Miss
Allison and godmother made coffee and unpacked the hampers we had
brought with us. There was beaten biscuit and fried chicken and iced
watermelon, and all sorts of good things. As we ate, the moon came up
higher and higher, and silvered the white trunks of the sycamores till
they looked like a row of ghosts standing with outstretched arms along
the creek. It was so lovely there above the water. All the sweet woodsy
smells of fern and mint and fallen leaves seem stronger after nightfall.
Everybody enjoyed the feast so much, and was in such high spirits that
we all felt a shade of regret that it had to come to an end so soon.

[Illustration: "'THEY STEPPED IN AND ROWED OFF DOWN THE SHINING
WATERWAY'"]

"There were two boats down by the bridge which we found that Rob had had
sent over that morning for the occasion. They had brought the oars over
in the wagon. Pretty soon we saw Eugenia and Stuart going down toward
one of them, a little white canvas one, and they stepped in and rowed
off down the shining waterway. It was only a narrow creek, but the
moonlight seemed to glorify it, and we knew that it made them think of
that boat-ride that had been the beginning of their happiness, in
far-away Venice.

"The other boat was larger. Allison and Miss Bonham, Phil and Lieutenant
Stanley went out in that. The music of their singing, as it floated back
to us, was so beautiful, that those of us on the bank stopped talking to
listen. When they came back presently, Kitty and Joyce, Rob and
Lieutenant Logan pushed out in it for awhile. They sang too.

"When the little boat came back, Doctor Bradford asked Lloyd to go out
with him, and she said she would as soon as she had given her chatelaine
watch to her father to keep for her. The clasp kept coming unfastened
and she was afraid she would lose it."

Here Betty laid down her pen a moment and sat peering dreamily out
between the vines. She was about to record a little conversation she had
overheard between Lloyd and her father as they stood a moment in the
bushes behind her, but paused as she reflected that it would be like
betraying a confidence to make an entry of it in her journal. It would
be even worse, since it was no confidence of hers, but a matter lying
between Lloyd and her father alone.

She sat tapping the rim of the ink-bottle with her pen as she recalled
the conversation. "Yes, it's all right for you to go, Lloyd, but wait a
moment. Have you m