“Very much,” replied Mr. Parlin.  “I can spend but one day with you, and I would as lief spend it nutting as in any other way.”

“Only one day, Uncle Edward!” cried Grace and Horace.

“Only one day, papa!” stammered Dotty, feeling like a little kitten who did have her paw on a mouse, but sees the mouse disappear down a hole.

“O, I shall leave you, my daughter.  You will stay here a week or two, and meet me in Indianapolis.”

Dotty was able to eat once more.

“Father, what are we to do for horses to go nutting with?” spoke up Horace.  “Robin raked this part of town yesterday with a fine-tooth comb, and couldn’t find anything but an old clothes’ horse, and that was past travelling.”

“My son!”

Mr. Clifford’s face said very plainly,—­

“Not so flippant, my child!”

But the only remark he made was to the effect that there were doubtless horses to be found in the city at the stables.

“What about the infant, mamma?” said Grace.  “Is she to be one of the party?”

When Katie was present she was sometimes mysteriously mentioned as “the infant.”  It was quite an undertaking to allow her to go; but Mrs. Clifford had yielded the point an hour or two before, out of regard to Horace’s feelings.  She knew the nutting party would be spoiled for him if his beloved little Topknot were left out.

“Is I goin’?” asked she, when she heard the joyful news.  “Yes, I’m are goin’ to get some horse.”

“No, some pecans, you little Brown-brimmer.”

Katie had a dim suspicion that she owed this pleasure to her brother’s influence.

“Hollis,” said she, eagerly,—­“Hollis, you may have the red part o’ my apple.”

This sounded like the very fulness of generosity, but was a hollow mockery; for by the “red part” she only meant the skin.

Mr. Clifford had one horse, and while Robin Sherwood was going to the city for another, Mrs. Clifford made ready the lunch.

Happy Dotty walked about, twirling a lock of her front hair, and watched Katinka cleaning the already nice paint, spilling here and there “little drops of water, little grains of sand.”  She also observed the solemn yet dextrous manner in which Phebe washed the breakfast dishes, and looked on with peculiar interest as Aunt Maria filled the basket.

First there were custards to be baked in little cups and freckled with nutmeg, to please Uncle Edward.  Then there was a quantity of eggs to be boiled hard.  As Mrs. Clifford dropped these one by one into a kettle of water, Katie ran to the back door, and cried out to the noisy hens,—­

“Stop cacklerin’, chickie; we’ve got ’em.”

Then, fearing she had not made herself understood, she added,—­

“We’ve found your aigs, chickie; they was ror, but we’s goin’ to bake ’em.”

Dotty was impressed with the beauty of the picnic basket and the delicacy of the food.  Everything she saw was rose-colored to-day.