and the two boys were about him and he sat down with the family to such a breakfast as never had been spread before him. Sometimes Ellen waited upon him; sometimes her mother; sometimes the smallest of the three girls passed him a dish with her tiny brown hands, very competent (like Ellen's) and with big gray eyes (very like Ellen's) seriously lifted to his.
By all canons of conduct, this self-invited guest should have departed after breakfast, but it was the last thing he desired to do; so he compromised by taking a walk with Ted along old Indian trails which led, here and there, to sudden, silent clearings planted to squash and beans and corn and to weathered cabins from which the black, beady eyes of Chippewa squaws and children observed them. Jay wanted to return to the house, the home where Ellen was.
Noon came on, still, sunny and cloudless but not hot. There was no wind to stir the leaves of beech and maple; the silver poplar scarcely flicked in the sun; yet the strait was not quite calm. You could see from the hillside the sparkle of ripples and you felt cooled by a current of air which failed to disturb the trees. Wood insects droned and hummed, and bees were at the pink clover blossoms.
It was the hour for a swim and Ted had borrowed a suit for Jay. Ellen in bathing suit went with her sisters down to the beach, where Jay and the boys ran foot-races.
Strange to approach him, with her arms bare, her shoulders almost bare, her legs bare and with her blue bathing suit clinging close to her body; strange but not at all unpleasant. He glanced at her as he glanced at her sisters, and he gave one hand to Ann (who was the littlest one)
