The supper table had been brought out into the open air, and it stood upon the flagged path, where they had spread their hospitable feast for the higgler's wedding. Norah was coming in and out of the kitchen, and Dale sat watching her as she arranged knives, forks, and glasses. Both the children were to be of the party; and they might stay up as late as they pleased, because as it was too hot to sleep in their beds, it did not matter how long the young people remained out of them. They were now roaming about the orchard with Mavis, hunting for a coolness that did not exist anywhere except in one's memory, and their voices sounded at intervals languidly. More and more color was now perceptible; distances were extending; lines of meager flowers, crimson and blue as well as white, showed in a border of the kitchen garden; and the sky, seeming to lift and brighten, was a faint orange above the horizon and a most delicate rose tint toward the zenith--so that till half-past eight, or later, one had the illusion that the night was going to be more brightly lighted than the day. Nobody had much appetite for supper, but they all sat a long while at the table, glad to rest if they could not eat, hoping that when they moved from their chairs they would find the temperature lower within the house walls than outside them. Mavis gave little oppressed sighs as she fanned her jolly round face and broad matronly chest with a copy of the _Courier_. Ethel, who to-night seemed an extraordinarily cumbrous awkward creature, flumped the dishes down on the table and shuffled away on her big flat feet. Norah glided to and fro, now here, now there, pouring out milk and water for the children, and ducking prettily when a bat came close to her white face and black hair. "What, Norah," said Mavis, laughing, "you a country girl, and afraid of a flitter-mouse!" "Yes," said Billy, "she's afraid of the flitty-mouse. Isn't she a coward? You are a coward, Norah." And then the laugh was turned against Billy; for the bat passing again and lower than before, Billy himself ducked and crouched automatically. "Who's the coward now, young sir?" "I don't mind anything that has wings," said Rachel. "It's what goes creeping and crawling that I'm afraid of." "I don't mind ear-wigs," said Billy defiantly.