robably,"
said Furbush.

Tom looked over at Furbush. He hated his liquid tones, like honey
dripping on a blue plush sofa. "How the hell do you get that way?" he
wanted to ask--then he rounded out the sentence with certain phrases
which had been current among our heroes along all war fronts from
Kamchatka to Trieste. Even a milder remark was happily averted, for at
this point the potato which Mrs. Norris had been steadily roasting,
burst into flame and had to be plunged into the fire; a grateful
accident, for now she was willing to sit down on the camp stool brought
for her and to confine herself to the slicing of the bread.

What passed until the meal was finished was of slight significance. It
was a decidedly detached party, the two couples being brought together
chiefly through Mrs. Norris; and when Nancy and Tom had finished a
banana which they had divided in the jolly picnic way, Tom stood up. "Do
you realize," he asked Nancy, "that this is a wishing carpet we've been
sitting on? Let's take it down by the creek and see where it will take
us."

"Oh, dear," said Mrs. Norris, not at all displeased. "And now where are
you and Mary going?"

"We're going to look for crocuses in the garden of the Queen of the
Fairies," replied Furbush. "They ought to be up now."

"Well, take along this flashlight: it's getting awfully bosky-wosky in
there." And then Mrs. Norris was left alone with Julia, whom she
entertained with an animated and brilliant account of Titania and
Oberon.

"Where shall we go?" asked Tom when they were seated on the magic motor
rug.

"Let's go to Libya!" said Nancy promptly.

"Libya! Well, I suppose we might as well go there as anywhere. You
realize, of course, that we won't go until I put my foot on the
carpet"--his left foot was straggling over the edge.

"Perhaps you'd better keep it there for a few minutes, then, until we
are sure that we really want to go. As a matter of fact, I think it is
rather nice right here in Woodbridge," and she smiled up at him.

Nancy had, of course, smiled upon a great many young men without
precipitating a proposal of marriage, but then, the young men had
probably not woven her image into their future hopes and fears as
thoroughly as he had. Also the hour and the place lent their potency to
her smile. The soft spring evening, happily extended by Daylight Saving,
the noisy little creek running by their feet, and the staunch ally of
all such projects, the great rou