Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/108

 She set down the basket that she had been carrying and began to spread a table cloth on the grass.

"Michael is feeding Dobbin," she said, "and I have telephoned to Betsey's house, so that all that you have to do is to sit down and eat."

The suggestion was adopted with alacrity, for the appetites of the two were keen, and their own evening meals seemed far away. Amid much mirth was told the tale of poor Dick's misfortunes, of his headlong flight from his enemies and of the amazement of the pigeons on whose hospitality he had so unceremoniously thrust himself. Of her talk with the farmer's wife, Betsey did not say so much, only delivered her messages and accounted for the eggs.

"I thought I would drop them a hundred times," she said at the end. "I never knew that eggs could grow so heavy."

She sat lazily on the grass, feeling rested and content, unmindful for any further exertion than to dabble her fingers in the quiet pool. A shimmering band of sunset light dyed the opposite half of the basin as though the water had been set on fire. Miss Miranda, leaning comfortably against a tree, had taken out her knitting.

"There is something wrong with Michael to-night," she observed as she clicked the needles in and out. "He is sitting on the bench by the gate staring straight before him and not even smoking