team, looking strong and handsome in his keeping with the scene:  Before he got within hearing, the ladies murmured a hymn of praise to his type of beauty; they said he looked like a young Hercules, and Westover owned with an inward smile that Jeff had certainly made the best of himself for the time being.  He had taken a leaf from the book of the summer folks; his stalwart calves revealed themselves in thick, ribbed stockings; he wore knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket of corduroy; he had style as well as beauty, and he had the courage of his clothes and looks.  Westover was still in the first surprise of the American facts, and he wondered just what part in the picnic Jeff was to bear socially.  He was neither quite host nor guest; but no doubt in the easy play of the life, which Westover was rather proud to find so charming, the question would solve itself rationally and gracefully.

“Where do you want the things?” the young fellow asked of the company at large, as he advanced upon them from the green portals of the roadway, pulling off his soft wool hat, and wiping his wet forehead with his blue-bordered white handkerchief.

“Oh, right here, Jeff!” The nimblest of the nymphs sprang to her feet from the lounging and crouching circle about Westover.  She was a young nymph no longer, but with a daughter not so much younger than herself as to make the contrast of her sixteen years painful.  Westover recognized the officious, self-approving kind of the woman, but he admired the brisk efficiency with which she had taken possession of the affair from the beginning and inspired every one to help, in strict subordination to herself.

When the cloths were laid on the smooth, elastic moss, and the meal was spread, she heaped a plate without suffering any interval in her activities.

“I suppose you’ve got to go back to your horses, Jeff, and you shall be the first served,” she said, and she offered him the plate with a bright smile and friendly grace, which were meant to keep him from the hurt of her intention.

Jeff did not offer to take the plate which she raised to him from where she was kneeling, but looked down at her with perfect intelligence.  “I guess I don’t want anything,” he said, and turned and walked away into the woods.

The ill-advised woman remained kneeling for a moment with her ingratiating smile hardening on her face, while the sense of her blunder petrified the rest.  She was the first to recover herself, and she said, with a laugh that she tried to make reckless, “Well, friends, I suppose the rest of you are hungry; I know I am,” and she began to eat.

The others ate, too, though their appetites might well have been affected by the diplomatic behavior of Whitwell.  He would not take anything, just at present, he said, and got his long length up from the root of a tree where he had folded it down.  “I don’t seem to care much for anything in the middle of the day; breakfast’s my best meal,” and he followed Jeff off into the woods.