“Yes, both boys have written since I came here. Lawrence is in a different camp, it seems, and is sorry not to be with the other boys.”
“That was such a lovely house-party that we had last year, just a year ago, after camp.”
“The next one will probably be for Lil’s wedding, after the war.”
“_Lil’s_ wedding?—and you Phil’s sister!”
“Yes, the wedding is chiefly the bride’s, I guess. I wish I had another brother or cousin for you, Betty, though the future Admiral Hilton wouldn’t thank me for that, I suppose. But to have you ’way off in Chicago!”
“Don’t you think that we are going ahead just a little too fast, Cathalina?”
“I guess we are, especially if the war lasts for years and years!”
“Donald says it can’t after he and the other boys from Grant Academy get over there! He is always joking that way.”
“I wonder where the farm ends,” said Cathalina, looking through the woods which seemed to stretch endlessly along the bluff above the shore.
“We’d better not go too far. I don’t see Hilary and Lilian now. Let’s go back. That looks like another shack or cabin ahead of us. Perhaps it belongs to some other farm.”
The girls retraced their steps, finding other girls strolling about, and joining some of them to go where some fine stock was grazing. Betty leaned over a fence to snap some pictures of the cattle. “Nice old bossies,” she said. “I guess this place is where that grand cream we’re having now comes from. Come on, let’s get the farmer to pose for us with some of the horses, or the family, if they, want to.”
“There isn’t any family there yet, but the tenants live back in that little bit of a house. See?” Eloise was pointing as she spoke. “And it’s no use to ask the farmer. Some of the girls did, and he acted as if he were mad about it. I don’t believe he likes to have the girls come here. Listen! That’s the dinner bell. Doesn’t it make you think of Merry-meeting Camp?”
“Where do we have our lunch?—O, yes, of course, in the little summer house they made on purpose. Say, Eloise, wouldn’t it be fun to snap the farmer when he wasn’t looking? Where is he?” Betty was looking all around to find the new farmer of whom she had had a glimpse as they went up to the wood. “He’s such a straight, fine-looking man that he would make a good picture for our memory books, if we could get him with a good background of the woods and lake, or the vineyard, or some of the pretty surroundings here.”