It was one day quite late in the fall, almost their last balmy picnic before the cold weather set in, that they were sitting up on the rocks around a pleasant, resinous pine-needle fire they had made, discussing this. Allison was maintaining that it was not good for Leslie to go with a girl like that, that all the fellows despised; and Leslie was pouting and saying she didn't see why he had to be so prejudiced and unfair; and Julia Cloud was looking troubled and wondering whether her heart and her head were both on the wrong side, or what she ought to do about it, when a step behind them made them all turn around startled. It was the first time they had been interrupted by an intruder in this retreat, and it had come to seem all their own. Moreover, the cocoa on the fire was boiling, and the lunch was about to be served on the little paper plates. There stood a tall man with a keen, care-worn face, a scholarly air, and an unmistakably wistful look in his eyes. "Why, is this where you spend your nooning, Cloud? It certainly looks inviting," he said with a comprehensive glance at the wax-papered sandwiches and the little heap of cakes and fruit. Allison arose with belated recognition. "O Dr. Bowman," he said, "let me introduce you to my aunt, Miss Cloud, and my sister Leslie." The scholarly gentleman bowed low in acknowledgment of the introduction, and fairly seemed to melt under the situation. "Well, now, this certainly is delightful!" he said, still eying the generously spread rock table. "Quite an idea! Quite an idea! Is this some special occasion, some celebration or something?" He glanced genially round on the group. "Oh, no, we often bring our lunch out here," said Julia Cloud in a matter-of-fact tone. "It keeps us out-of-doors, and makes a pleasant change." There was finality in her tone, and a sensitive-minded professor would have moved on at once, for the cocoa was boiling over, and had to be rescued, and he might have seen they did not want him; but he lingered affably. "Well, that certainly is an original idea. Quite so. It really makes one quite hungry to think of it. That certainly looks like an attractive repast." There was nothing for it but to invite him to partake, which Allison did as curtly as he dared, considering that the intruder was one of his major professors, and hoping sincerely that he would refuse. But Professor Bowman did not refuse. No such good chance, and quite to Julia Cloud's annoyance--for she wanted to have the talk out with her children--he sat himself down on the rock as if he were quite acclimated to picnics in November, and accepted so many sandwiches that Leslie, seated slightly behind and out of his sight, made mock signs of horror lest there should not be enough to go around. It appeared that he had started out to search for his pocket-knife, which his young son had borrowed and lost somewhere in that region as nearly as he could remember, and thus had come upon the picnickers.