You can make pleasure out of almost anything, if you set about it.  In the intervals she rested, and watched the distant figures of the fishing party on the island; and gladdened herself with the beauty and the sweet air of the wood, and the flecks of sunshine and moving shadow on the ground beneath the trees.  I am afraid nobody else found the air sweet, unless it were the doctor.  He was hardy, and besides had a philosophical way of looking at things.  Daisy watched for his coming, afraid that he might wander off beyond luncheon time; but he did not come.  The three boys, however, a less welcome sight, had recollected that there was something forward besides fishing; and came strolling along through the trees towards the tablecloth.  Preston was stopped to speak to his mother; the other two approached Daisy.

“Hello!” said Ransom, “here we are! now where’s everybody else?  I’m furious as a lion.”

“A hungry lion,” said Alexander Fish.  “I wish we had got some fish for the people to cook.  That’s fun.  I tell you, Ransom, it’s fun to see the work they make with it.”

“Fish is no count, I think,” said Ransom.  “It’s only good to catch.  I can stand a lobster salad, though.  But I can’t stand long without something.  What’s the use of waiting?  They aren’t coming back yonder till night.  They haven’t stirred yet.”

Ransom’s eyes indicated the party on the island.  And acting upon his announced opinion, Ransom, paid his respects in a practical form, not to cold chicken and bread, but to a dish of cream cakes which stood conveniently near.  And having eaten one, in three mouthfuls, he stretched out his hand and took another.  Happily then some meringues attracted his attention; and he stood with a cream cake in one hand and a meringue in the other, taking them alternately or both together.  The meringues began to disappear fast.  Daisy warned him that the only dish of those delicacies in all the entertainment was the one into which he was making such inroads.  Ransom paid her no heed and helped himself to another.

“Ransom, that is not fair,” said his sister.  “There are no more but those, and you will have them all gone.  Just look, now, how the dish looks!”

“How the dish looks!” said Ransom mockingly.  “None of your business.”

“It is not right.  Don’t Ransom!” Daisy said, as his hand was extended for a fourth meringue.

“Want ’em for yourself?” said Ransom sneeringly.  “I say, Alexander—­here’s a game!  Here’s something just fit for a man’s luncheon in a summer day—­something nice and light and nourishing.  Here’s a lark pie—­I know what it is, for I saw Joanna making it.  Now we’ll have this and be off.”

“You must not, Ransom,” Daisy urged anxiously.  But Ransom seized the pie from its place and proceeded to cut into it, seeing that nobody was near to hinder him.

“Ransom, you ought not to do it,” pleaded Daisy.  “You ought to wait your turn.  You are worse than Fido.”