my whole arm act like a poker. Father hugged me with all
the energy he hadn't been using on me all my life. It hurt me happily.

Roxanne came last and she saved hers until the Colonel had packed us
down together in a nest of hay at Miss Priscilla's feet like two
kittens in a basket, with Lovelace Peyton squirming around as a third.

"You never encouraged me to kiss you before, Phyllis," she whispered,
with her arm around my neck; "but I'm going to whenever I want to
after this, and here's a wish that we will never get separated farther
than kissing distance, now that we have found each other."

Only Lovelace Peyton kept me from crying out loud like a baby from
happiness. He burrowed between Roxanne and me in a search for some
peppermint he smelled in the hay, and stuck one knee right into my
mouth to stop the sob, which was a laugh when I removed the knee for
it to get out. My first hug around Roxanne's waist was mighty awkward,
but I know she understood.

After that the picnic unfolded its minutes in such a cloud of
moonlight and rosy happiness, accompanied by song, that I don't know
very well what really did happen. For once I felt that I was looking
on life from the same exalted point of view that Roxanne always has,
and I hope it will become a habit with me. Only I know it won't.

Tony's surprise, that he had got Father to help him about, was a
hot-air balloon that the Scout book tells them how to make, and they
sent one up from the place we stopped at, out on Providence Road, with
"Phyllis," cut out in great big letters and lighted with a candle
inside, which wobbled and set the whole thing on fire before it got
much higher than the trees. Still, it did go up and it had my name on
it! When I got off the train in Byrdsville two months ago I couldn't
have believed in that balloon, if it had been revealed to me in a
vision. Do I deserve it all?

One of the reasons of my rosy view was that the Idol rode upon the
front seat of the wagon, with the farmer who drove, and smoked one of
Father's cigars and led all the songs in the most marvelously
beautiful voice I ever heard. He was on the Glee Club at Princeton,
and of course to have him come to the party at all was a compliment.
He helped Miss Priscilla and me unpack the suppers out on Tilting
Rock, and acted only a little more grown-up than Tony and Pink, I
don't know whether I quite liked to have him unbend so far as to throw
a biscuit back at Tony. He is too grea