t with my back to that side of the street," he told
himself. "It's safe enough! And it will give Buster a good time." He
didn't realize that he rather hankered for a good time himself; to be
sure, he felt a hundred years old! But money was no longer a very keen
anxiety (he had passed his twenty-fifth birthday); and the day was
glittering with sunshine, and Edith would make coffee, and Eleanor would
sing. Yes! Edith should have a good time!

They went clanging gayly along over the bridge, down Maple Street, and
through the suburbs of Medfield until they came to the end of the car
line, where they piled out, with all their impediments, and started for
the river and the big locust.

"You'll sing, Nelly," Maurice said--Eleanor's face lighted with
pleasure;--"and I'll tell Edith how a girl ought to behave on her
wedding trip, and you can instruct Johnny how to elope."

Then, with little Bingo springing joyously, but rather stiffly, ahead of
them, they tramped across the yellowing stubble of the mowed field,
talking of their coffee, and whether there would be too much wind for
their fire--and all the while Maurice was aware of Lily at No. 16; and
Eleanor was remembering her hope of a time when she and Maurice would be
coming here, and it would not be "just us"! and Johnny was thinking that
Edith was intelligent--for a woman; and Edith was telling herself that
_this_ kind of thing was some sense!

Eleanor, sitting down under the old locust, watched the three young
people. She wondered when Maurice would tell her to sing. "The river is
a lovely accompaniment, isn't it?" she hinted. No one replied.

"I'm going in wading after dinner," Edith announced; "what do you say,
boys? Let's take off our shoes and stockings, and walk down to the
second bridge. Eleanor can sit here and guard our things."

"I'm with you!" Maurice said; and Johnny said he didn't mind; but
Eleanor protested.

"You'll get your skirts wringing wet, Edith. And--I thought we were to
sit here and sing?"

"Oh, you can sing any old time," Edith said, lifting the lid of the
coffee pot and stirring the brown froth with a convenient stick.

"And I'm just to look on?" Eleanor said.

"Why, wade, if you want to," her husband said; "It's safe enough to
leave Edith's things here."

After that he was too much absorbed in shooing ants off the marmalade to
give any thought to his wife. The luncheon (except to her) was the usual
delightful discomfort of balancing co