Camping -- Fiction; Manners and customs -- Fiction
"Hector," she said, as soon as she was near enough for him to hear her,
"don't go after the pipe; let us take a moonlight walk along the shore. I
believe it is full moon to-night, and we have not had a walk of that sort
for ever so long."
"Very good," said her husband, turning to her. "I shall be delighted. I
don't care for the pipe, and the cigar would have been good enough if it
had not been for the sermon. That would spoil any pleasure. I can't stand
that young woman, Harriet; I positively cannot."
"Well, then, let us walk away and forget her," said his wife. "I don't
wonder she annoys you."
"If it were only the young woman," thought Mrs. Archibald, as the two
strolled away beneath the light of the moon, "we might manage it. But her
brother!"
At the next indication of a pause in Corona's discourse the bishop
suddenly stood on his feet. "I wonder," he said, "if there is anything the
matter with Mrs. Archibald? I will step over to her cabin to see."
"Indeed!" said Corona, rising with great promptness, "I hope it is nothing
serious. I will go with you."
Margery was not a rude girl, but she could not help a little laugh, which
she subdued as much as possible; Mr. Clyde, who was sitting near her,
laughed also.
"There is nothing on earth the matter with Aunt Harriet," said Margery.
"They didn't go into the cabin; I saw them walking away down the shore."
"How would you like to walk that way?" he asked. "I think their example is
a very good one."
"It is capital," said Margery, jumping up, "and let's get away quickly
before she comes back."
They hurried away, but they did not extend their walk down the lake shore
even as far as Mr. and Mrs. Archibald had already gone. When they came to
the bit of beach behind the clump of trees where the bishop had retired
that afternoon to read, they stopped and sat down to watch the moonlight
on the water.
Matlack and Mrs. Perkenpine were now the only persons at the camp-fire,
for Bill Hammond, as was his custom, had promptly gone to bed as soon as
his work was done. If Arthur Raybold had intended to come to the
camp-fire, he had changed his mind, for he now stood near his sister's
tent, apparently awaiting the approach of Corona and the bishop, who had
not found the Archibalds, and who were now walking together in what might
have been supposed, by people who did not know the lady, to be an earnest
dialogue.
Mr. Matlack was seated on his log, and he smoked, while Mrs. Perkenpine
sat on the ground, her head thrown back and her arms hugging her knees.
"Phil," said she, "that there moon looks to me like an oyster with a
candle behind it, and as smooth and slippery as if I could jest swallow it
down. You may think it is queer for me to think such things as that, Phil,
but since I've come to know myself jest as I am, me, I've found out
feelin's--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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