"I beg your pardon, I--WHY, Miss Grant!" The words burst from his lips as if they had been fired from a gun. "You here!" "Yes, I live only twenty miles away, and I come here every year. Where are you staying?" "At Pollard's." "Why, that's the next clearing from mine. I'm at old Mrs. Taft's. Oh, please don't leave your luncheon." Oliver had bounded up the bank to a place beside her. "How good it is to find you here. I am so glad." He WAS glad; he meant every word of it. "Mrs. Mulligan said you lived up in the woods, but I had no idea it was in these mountains. Have you had your luncheon?" "No, not yet," and Margaret held up a basket. "Look!" and she raised the lid. "Elderberry pie, two pieces of cake--" "Good! and I have three doughnuts and an apple. I swallowed every grain of my hot corn like a greedy Jack Horner, or you should have half of it. Come down under the bridge, it's so cool there," and he caught her hand to help her down the bank. She followed him willingly. She had seen him greet Fred, and Jack Bedford, and even the gentle Professor with just such outbursts of affection, and she knew there was nothing especially personal to her in it all. It was only his way of saying he was glad to see her. Oliver laid the basket and tin can on a flat stone that the spring freshets had scoured clean; spread his brown corduroy jacket on the pebbly beach beside it, and with a laugh and the mock gesture of a courtier, conducted her to the head of his improvised table. Margaret laughed and returned the bow, stepping backward with the sweep of a great lady, and settled herself beside him. In a moment she was on her knees bending over the brook, her hands in the water, the tam-o'-shanter beside her. She must wash her hands, she said--"there was a whole lot of chrome yellow on her fingers"--and she held them up with a laugh for Oliver's inspection. Oliver watched her while she dried and bathed her shapely hands, smoothed the hair from her temples and tightened the coil at the back of her head which held all this flood of gold in check, then he threw himself down beside her, waiting until she should serve the feast.