e forest across the road. Susy McRae made
the coffee, hindered by John's advice, more voluble than useful. Tom
Schuyler was instructed in the proper method of propping up a broiler
before the blaze, so that the chicken might cook without exacting a
human burnt offering. Patton volunteered for the task of getting the
potatoes into the ashes. The rest of the girls laid the table-cloths on
the ground, and opened the baskets, and the rest of the men hunted up
logs for seats, and brought the cushions and rugs from the carriages.

Sydney dominated the scene, giving a clever suggestion to Tom,
encouraging Susy to disregard John's teasing, which threatened some
harm to the coffee, sympathizing with Patton over a burn, and showing
Katrina how to cook bacon on a long forked stick.

After the meal was eaten and complacency filled them, she it was who
sent their suppers to the coachmen, and who packed up baskets and
folded cloths, aided by von Rittenheim and Bob.

"Oh, do stop doing that, Sydney," cried Mildred Huger. "You make us all
feel so mean not to be helping you, and you know it isn't necessary
right now."

"Yes, come and sit by me, Sydney," said John. "I've been saving a
place, and it'll be a treat for you."

"Wait a few minutes, Sydney," said Tom, "and you shall have my valuable
help."

"There, it's all done, dear people," cried Sydney, "and we can watch
the moon with a clear conscience."

"Will you not come with me to the bridge to see it?" begged Friedrich,
in a low voice. "Ah, do come!"

Bob, who had been about to ask the same thing, turned away and
stretched himself at Mildred Huger's feet. Susy softly touched her
guitar, suggesting popular airs, and voices took up the tunes, now
stopping to say something funny and to laugh while others carried on
the song, now joining in an energetic chorus. On the outskirts of the
circle farthest from the dying fire sat the couples in whom the soft
night and the moonlight and the music were arousing sentiment. More
than one young fellow watched Friedrich and Sydney as they disappeared
behind the willows on the bank, and wished that he had been the first
to suggest the bridge, and envied the two their vantage point.

They stood side by side upon its hoof-worn planks. Under their feet
swept the musical flow of the stream, molten silver in the moonlight as
it slid towards them, a sparkling, dancing mist of tossing diamonds as
it fled away over the stones of the rough bottom.