Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/146

130 "Just as we used to play circus when father and mother couldn't afford to send us," Meg said.

The young couple loitered along the walk, looking around them for a few yards, and then they seemed to decide to come back to a seat not far from where the children were making the most of their eggs. As she passed Meg and Robin, the woman glanced at the scanty little spread on the seat between them. She did not do it curiously or rudely, and she looked away and went on talking to her husband at once.

"This is as good a place as any, Jem," they heard her say. "Let's sit here; I'm ready to drop. I'm so tired, and I'm starving hungry; ain't you?"

"Guess I am," he answered, with a grin; "I hope you have got plenty in your basket, Em. I could eat a steer an' not stop to chaw him nuther."

The woman laughed too. "Well," she said, "I know what you can get outside of when you've been ploughing, an' I'm used to perviding fer ye. I ain't one to stint a man; I guess ye know that by experience; I believe ye'll have a plenty."

"If there was any poor appetites come in at the gate this morning," said Jem, "I guess they won't be likely to be took through it when night comes."

They sat down, and when they did it each of them heaved a sigh of relieved fatigue. The woman