other side. It was in one of these glades that Ted's mother arranged
the gipsy tea. Can you imagine a prettier place for a summer day's
treat? Overhead the bluest of blue skies and sunshine, tempered by the
leafy screen-work of the thickly growing trees; at one side the soft
rush of the silvery river, whose song was here low and gentle, though
one could hear in the distance the boom of the noisy waterfall; at the
other side the mountain slope, whose short brown slippery turf seemed to
tempt one to a climb. And close at hand the wealth of ferns and bracken
and flowers that I have told you of--a little higher up strange gleaming
balls of many kinds of fungus, yellow and orange, and even scarlet,
flamed out as if to rival the softer tints of the trailing honeysuckle
and delicate convolvulus and pink foxglove below. It was a lovely dream
of fairyland, and the knowing that not far away the waves of the broad
blue sea were gently lapping the sandy shore seemed somehow to make it
feel all the lovelier.

The tea of course was a great success--when was a gipsy tea, unless
people are _very_ cross-tempered and fidgety and difficult to please,
anything else? The kettle did its duty well, for the water boiled in it
beautifully on the fire of dry sticks and leaves which Percy and Mabel,
and busy Ted _of course_, had collected. The tea tasted very good--"not
'moky at all," said Ted; the slices of bread and butter and cake
disappeared in a wonderful way, till at last everybody said "No,
thank you, not any more," when the boys handed round the few
disconsolate-looking pieces that remained.

And after this there was the fun of washing up and packing away, in
which Ted greatly distinguished himself. He would not leave the least
shred of paper or even crumbs about, for the fairies would be angry, he
said, if their pretty house wasn't left "kite tidy." And Percy and Mabel
were amused at his fancy, and naturally enough it set them talking about
fairies and such like. For the children were by themselves now--the
ladies had gone on a little farther to a place where Ted's mother wanted
to sketch, and the gentlemen had set off to climb to the nearest peak,
from whence there was a beautiful view of the sea. It would have been
too much for Ted, and indeed when his father had asked him if he would
like to go part of the way with them, both his mother and Percy noticed
that a troubled look came over his happy face, as he said he would
rather stay