In the evenings, as a rule, they went to the “open camp.” There in the big three-sided log shed with its evergreen-lined walls and its deep, blanket-covered floor of soft balsam boughs, a dozen or more people were wont to congregate by night. In front of the shed blazed a Homeric camp fire that tempered the mountain chilliness and made the whole place light as day. The young people,--Desirée and Jack among them,--usually spent the short evenings in singing and story-telling. Caleb felt less at his ease here than anywhere else. For the young folk talked a language of Youth, that he did not understand. The stories he found somewhat mild, and the point of several of them he failed to catch. A sense of strangeness prevented him from joining in the songs. He had had no youth; save that which Desirée had imparted to him. And he knew himself out of place among the carefree, jolly crowd. It made him feel ponderous, aged, taciturn. The easy laughter of youth only perplexed him. His sole joy during these open camp evenings was to lie in a shadowed corner of the “lean-to” and watch the firelight play on Desirée’s bright face; to hear her infectious laugh; to see how popular she was among the youngsters of her own age. So long as she did not seek to ease his boredom by dragging him into the talk, he was well content to lie thus and drink the delight of her fresh loveliness. When she made him talk, he straightway became pompously shy; and managed to convey his sense of acute discomfort to everyone about him. Altogether, the Adirondacks, for perhaps the first time since that wonderland’s discovery, had found a visitor who did not speedily become a worshipper. * * * * * “Receive news!” announced Desirée, one evening as she met Caleb on her return from a conference with Mrs. Hawarden. “To-morrow’s my birthday.” “Did you s’pose I’d forgot?” he asked in reproach,--“There’s two dates I always manage to remember. One’s your birthday. The other’s the day you’re comin’ back to Granite.” “But _that_ isn’t the news,” she went on. “It’s only a running start to get you ready for it. Mrs. Hawarden’s going to celebrate by the gorgeousest picnic you ever heard of.” “Last one we went on,” began Caleb, “I burnt two of my fingers; an’ there was sand in the lem’nade. But,” he broke off just in time, “it’ll be great to go on another. Where’s it to be?”