"Not at all," Betty insisted. "We have a double reason for giving it to
you. First, you are hungry. Second, please accept it as a reward for--"
"For not eating all of your lunch after I found it, I suppose you were
going to say," put in the man, with a smile. "Very well, then I'll
accept," and he bowed, not ungracefully.
He had the good taste--or was it bashfulness--to go over to a little
grove of trees to eat his portion. Grace wanted to take him a cup of
chocolate--which they made instead of tea--but Betty persuaded her not
to. The girls ate their lunch, to be interrupted in the midst of it by
the man who called a good-bye to them as he moved off down the road.
"He's going," remarked Amy. "I wonder if he had enough?"
"I think so," replied Betty. "Now, girls, we must hurry. We have been
delayed, and--"
"I'm so sorry," put in Mollie. "It was my fault, and--"
"Don't think of it, my dear!" begged Grace. "Any of us might have
forgotten the lunch, just as you did."
As they walked past the place which the tramp had selected for his dining
room, Betty saw some papers on the ground. They appeared to be letters,
and, rather idly, she picked them up. She looked into one or two of the
torn envelopes.
Pages:
104
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