were fairly started upon our meal, and then send around her children
with her biscuits, following them herself with the most tender
entreaties that we would put aside that unwholesome food and not risk
our precious lives. She would not, however, allow us to drink our own
coffee--about that she was firm. She insisted upon our making some
hygienic coffee which she had brought from the city, and we were
obliged to yield, or appear in a very stubborn and ungrateful light.
The coffee was really very good, and we did not mind. The other
parcel which she had brought contained a health food, to be made
into a sort of porridge with hot water, and little cups of that were
passed around, Mrs. Jameson's face fairly beaming with benevolence
the while, and there was no doubt that she was entirely in earnest.

Still, we were all so disturbed--that is, all of us elder
people--that I doubt if anybody enjoyed that luncheon unless it was
Grandma Cobb. She did not eat hygienic biscuits, but did eat cake and
pie in unlimited quantities. I was really afraid that she would make
herself ill with Mrs. Butter's fruit cake. One thing was a great
relief, to me at least: Flora Clark did not know the true story of
her jumbles until some time afterward. Mrs. White told her that the
pail had been upset and they were broken, and we were all so sorry;
and she did not suspect. We were glad to avoid a meeting between her
and Mrs. Jameson, for none of us felt as if we could endure it then.

I suppose the young folks enjoyed the picnic if we did not, and that
was the principal thing to be considered, after all. I know that
Harry Liscom and Harriet Jameson enjoyed it, and all the more that
it was a sort of stolen pleasure. Just before we went home I was
strolling off by myself near the brook, and all of a sudden saw the
two young things under a willow tree. I stood back softly, and they