nearly three o'clock
It would have seemed to her wonderful to be a poet herself . Ruth Bellair , waiting in unconscious sovereignty for Jerry to seek her out and lay lilies at her feet , was , she knew , the happiest woman in the spring world . Yet the soft air moved the pines to wavelike murmurings , and Marietta too was happy . It was nearly three o'clock when Jerry came back , and before that Marietta had roused herself to open her basket and spread a napkin on the big flat stone that made the picnic-table . She had laid a pile of fine white bread and butter on the cloth , a paper twist of pickles , because picnickers , according to tradition , are the better for consuming pickles , and some of her own superior sugar gingerbread . The cup was there waiting for Jerry to take it to the spring . Then she listened for him .