Meanwhile, Mrs. Atkinson had been with Euphemia examining the tent,
and our equipage generally.

"It would be very nice for a day's picnic," she said; "but I
wouldn't want to stay out-of-doors all night."

And then, addressing me, she asked:

"Do you have to breathe the fresh air all the time, night as well
as day? I expect that is a very good prescription, but I would not
like to have to follow it myself."

"If the fresh air is what you must have," said the captain, "you
might have got all you wanted of that without taking the trouble to
come out here. You could have sat out on your back porch night and
day for the whole two weeks, and breathed all the fresh air that
any man could need."

"Yes," said I, "and I might have gone down cellar and put my head
in the cold-air box of the furnace. But there wouldn't have been
much fun in that."

"There are a good many things that there's no fun in," said the
captain. "Do you cook your own meals, or have them sent from the
house?"

"Cook them ourselves, of course," said Euphemia. "We are going to
have supper now. Won't you wait and take some?"

"Thank you," said Mrs. Atkinson, "but we must go."