The Twenty-Fourth of June: Midsummer's DayRichmond, Grace S. (Grace Smith)
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The Twenty-Fourth of June: Midsummer's Day
Richmond, Grace S. (Grace Smith)
Children of the rich -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
They came around the end of the cabin together and stood at the front,
surveying the wide porch, its thick pillars of untrimmed logs, its
balustrade solid and sheltering, its roof low and overhanging. From the
road everything was concealed; from this aspect it was open to the
skies; its door and two front windows wide, yet showing, door as well as
windows, the heavy shutters which would make the place a stronghold
through what winter blasts might assault it. From the porch one could
see for miles in every direction; at the sides, only the woods.
"It's an ideal spot for a camp," declared Stephen with enthusiasm. "Is
it yours, Kendrick? I congratulate you. Invite me up here in the hunting
season, will you? I can't imagine anything snugger. May we look inside?"
"By all means! It's barely finished--it's entirely rough inside--but I
thought it would do for our supper to-night."
"Do!" Rosamond gave a little cry of delight as she looked in at the open
door. "Rough! You don't want it smoother. Does he, Rob? Look at the
rustic table and benches! And will you behold that splendid fireplace?
Oh, all you want here is the right company!"
"And that I surely have." Richard made her a little bow, his face
emphasizing his words. He went over to a cupboard in the wall, of which
there were two, one on either side of the fireplace. He threw it open,
disclosing hampers. "Here is our supper, I expect. Are you hungry? It's
up to us to serve it. I didn't have the man stay; I thought it would be
more fun to see to things ourselves."
"A thousand times more," Rosamond assured him, looking to Roberta for
confirmation, who nodded, smiling.
They fell to work. Hats were removed, riding skirts were fastened out of
the way, hampers were opened and the contents set forth. Everything that
could possibly be needed was found in the hampers, even to coffee,
steaming hot in the vacuum bottles as it had been poured into them.
"Some other time we'll come up and rough it," Richard explained, when
Stephen told him he was no true camper to have everything prepared for
him in detail like this; "but to-night I thought we'd spend as little
time in preparations as possible and have the more of the evening. It
will be a Midsummer Night's Dream on this hill to-night," said he, with
a glance at Roberta which she would not see.
Presently they sat down, Roberta finding herself opposite their host,
with the necessity upon her of eating and drinking like a common mortal,
though she was dwelling in a world where it seemed as if she did not
know how to do the everyday things and do them properly. It was a
delicious meal, no doubt of that, and at least Stephen and Rosamond did
justice to it.
"But you're not eating anything yourself, man," remonstrated Stephen,
as Richard pressed upon him more cold fowl and delicate sandwiches
supplemented by a salad such as connoisseurs partake of with sighs of
appreciation, and with fruit which one must marvel to look upon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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