"Is he telling the truth ?" "Yes," answered Denham, dryly.

"He was racing with the Anthony boys and fell, but, as you see, he's right enough now." "Ya-ah!" said Olly, and leered into her face with brotherly disrespect.
"I'll tell you a lie next time if you'd rather.

Ya-ah!" Gerald looked as if she were going to shake him on the spot, and to prevent any such catastrophe Denham suddenly seized the little fellow and put him through a number of acrobatic feats in breathless succession, till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was laughing, even Gerald.

Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to the assembled company, to his and their entire satisfaction, that the impossible is after all sometimes possible, when luncheon was announced by the ringing of a cow-bell, and a gay onslaught upon the usual picnic table, rich in luxuries and poor in necessities, superseded for the nonce all less material forms of amusement.
Later in the afternoon Halloway wandered off from the rest for one of the solitary strolls that he preferred to companionship as being less lonely,--a feeling often experienced when fate and not choice appoints one's comrades,--and returning leisurely along the banks of the lake, he came upon a little group of picnickers, and stopped unperceived beyond them, to enjoy for a while that comfortable sense of being in the world yet out of it, which is the birthright of all spectatorship.

Gerald and Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough picture for any artist.