"Well, that was all right, there was only one _he_ in the world so far as she was concerned. But do you remember, Phil, the time Mother took us in her store to buy candy and we talked to her canary and the old woman said, 'Ach, yes, I think still how good birds got it! I often wish I was a canary, but then he would have to be one too!' We disgraced Mother by giggling fit to kill ourselves. But the old woman just smiled at us and gave us each a pink and white striped peppermint stick. Now run along, Phil, don't be eavesdropping," she said as they reached the hall and she sat down to answer the telephone. "That you, Amanda?" came over the wire. "Yes." "Got a houseful of company? It seemed like that when we drove past. Overflow meeting on the porch!" "Oh, yes, as usual." "What I wanted to know is--are there any young people among the visitors, that makes it a matter of courtesy for you to stay at home all afternoon?" "No, they are all older people to-day, and a few little children." "Good! Then how would you like to have a little picnic, just we two? I want to get away from Victrola music and children's questions and four walls, and I thought you might have a similar longing." "Mental telepathy, Martin! That's just what I was thinking as I was out in the garden." "Then I'll call for you and we'll go up past the sandpit to that hilltop where the breeze blows even on a day like this." When Martin came for her she was ready, a lunch tucked under one arm, two old pillows in the other. She had given the red hair a few pats, added several hairpins, slipped off her white dress and buttoned up a pale green chambray one with cool white collar and cuffs. She stood ready, attractive, as Martin entered the lawn. "Say!" he whistled. "You did that in short order! I thought it took girls hours to dress." "Then you're like Solomon; you can't understand the ways of women!" She laughed as she handed him the lunch-box. Her calm efficiency puzzled him. Lately he was discovering so many undreamed of qualities in this lively friend of his childhood. He was beginning to feel some of the wonder those people must have felt whose children played with pebbles that were one day discovered to be priceless uncut diamonds. Until that day she had found him prostrate in her moccasin woods he had thought of her as just Amanda Reist, a nice, jolly girl with a quick temper if you tried her too hard and a quick tongue to express it, but a good comrade and a pleasant companion if you treated her fairly.