" ham sandwiches in oiled paper,
a bottle of stuffed olives, a great bag of salted almonds, two little
tumblers, a paper-covered novel, and a mouth organ.

Blix fairly crowed with delight, clasping her hands upon her knees, and
rocking to and fro where she sat upon the log.

"Oh, Condy, and you thought of a LUNCH--you said it was shoes--and you
remembered I loved stuffed olives, too; and a book to read. What is
it--'The Seven Seas.' No, I never WAS so happy. But the mouth
organ--what's that for?"

"To play on. What did you think--think it was a can-opener?"

Blix choked with merriment over his foolery, and Condy added proudly:

"Look there! I made those sandwiches!"

They looked as though he had--great, fat chunks of bread, the crust
still on; the "devilish" ham in thick strata between; and, positively,
he had BUTTERED the bread. But it was all one with them; they ate as
though at a banquet, and Blix even took off her hat and hung it upon
one of the nearby bushes. Of course Condy had forgotten a corkscrew.
He tried to dig out the cork of the claret bottle with his knife, until
he had broken both blades and was about to give up in despair, when
Blix, at the end of her patience, took the bottle from him and pushed
in the cork with her finger.

"Wine, music, literature, and feasting," observed Condy. "We're
getting regularly luxurious, just like Sardine-apalus."

But Condy himself had suddenly entered into an atmosphere of happiness,
the like of which he had never known or dreamed of before. He loved
Blix--he had just discovered it. He loved her because she was so
genuine, so radiantly fresh and strong; loved her because she liked the
things that he liked, because they two looked at the world from
precisely the same point of view, hating shams and affectations, happy
in the things that were simple and honest and natural. He loved her
because she liked his books, appreciating the things therein that he
appreciated, liking what he liked, disapproving of what he condemned.
He loved her because she was nineteen, and because she was so young and
unspoiled and was happy just because the ocean was blue and the morning
fine. He loved her because she was so pretty, because of the softness
of her yellow hair, because of her round, white forehead and pink
cheeks, because of her little, dark-brown eyes, with that look in them
as if she were just done smiling or just about to smile, one could not
say which; loved her