Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.A Double Picnic.Only four days before Aunt Maria arrived to make her great decision! The Garnetts were living in what Darsie graphically described as “the hush before the storm,” adored, condoned, and indulged by parents who saw before them the pangs of separation, and by brothers shrewdly expectant of parting spoils.Clemence, Darsie, and Lavender were acutely conscious of the rarified atmosphere by which they were surrounded, and only regretted its necessarily limited duration.“Let’s take advantage of it!” cried Darsie, the diplomat. “It’s our chance; we should be noodles if we let it slip. Anything we ask now they’ll let us have. It’s like prisoners who can order what they like for supper the night before they’re hanged. Let’s think what we’d like, and go in a body and petition mother. She won’t have the heart to refuse!”The sisters agreed enthusiastically, but were not rich in suggestions. It is one of the curious things in life that whereas every day one is brought up sharply against a dozen longings and ambitions, without the fulfilment of which it seems impossible to live, yet if the sudden question be put, “What would you have?” instantly the brain becomes a blank, and not a single suggestion is forthcoming. The Garnetts stared at one another in labouring silence. It was too late for parties; too early for pantomimes, a definite gift, failed to meet the case, since each girl thought with a pang, “What’s the use? I might not be here to enjoy it!” Extra indulgences, such as sitting up at night, or being “let off” early morning practising, did not appear sufficiently important, since, with a little scheming, these might be gained in addition. It was Lavender who at last succeeded in hitting the popular taste.“A picnic! A real whole-day one this time. Lunch in the woods at Earley, tea in our old woman’s cottage, walk over the fields to the amphitheatre, and home by train from Oxholm. Whoever goes with Aunt Maria will be cheated of her holiday, for the well-behaved country doesn’t count. If you have to wear gloves and walk properly, you might as well be in town at once. For the victim’s sake we ought to have one more day in the woods!”Clemence and Darsie sparkled, for the programme was an opulent one, combining as it did the two ordinary picnics into one. The yearly programme was that—“if you are good”—the Garnett family should be taken for two half-day excursions into the country on two summer Saturday afternoons, but though the woods and the amphitheatre were only separated by three short miles, never yet had the two places been visited together. An all-day picnic seemed a regal entertainment, worthy of the unique occasion.“Ourselves and the Vernons! Mrs Vernon to talk to mother, then they won’t have as much time to look after us. When they begin on carpets and curtains they forget everything else, and we can do as we like. Do you suppose Dan would come?”“Sure he wouldn’t.”“Why?”“My dear!”Clemence held out eloquent hands. “Does he ever come? He’s a man, soon going to college, and you are only ‘kids.’ I’m older than he is really; a woman is always older than a man, but he doesn’t like me. We are noten rapport.” Clemence tried hard to suppress a smirk of self-consciousness at the use of the French term, while the two younger sisters jeered and booed with the callous brutality of their kind.“Ha, ha! aren’t we fine? Roll your r’s a little more next time, my dear. It will sound miles better. Your accent leaves much to be desired. Aren’t we grown-up to-day? Aunt Mariawouldbe impressed! A little stay in Paris just to put on the accent, and it’s wonderful to think of what you might do!En rapport! Bet you daren’t say that to Dan! Dare you to tell him that you are noten rapport!”Clemence was seized with agitation, discerning through the innocent words a thinly veiled threat. If she didn’t, Darsiewould!“Darsie!” she cried loudly. “You mustn’t tell; you mustnot! It’s mean. Only sneaky children repeat what is said in private. Promise this minute that you won’t say a word!”But Darsie, like her brothers, was keenly alive to the privilege of holding a rod in pickle over an elder member of the family. So long as Clemence lived in fear of humiliating disclosure, so long might she herself walk in safety, free from rebuffs. She laid her head on one side and smiled sweetly into her sister’s face.“I shouldn’t like exactly, positively, topromise, don’t you know, for Iamsuch a creature of impulse. If it rushed over me suddenly, it might pop out, don’t you know, bang! before I knew what I was about! Of course, on the other hand, Imightnot—”“Very well,” snapped Clemence sharply, “then I stay at home! It would be no fun formeto go for a picnic with that sort of thing hanging over my head all the time. I know very well how you’d behave—rolling your eyes across the table, and beginning half-sentences, and introducing ‘en rapport’ every other moment. If I’m going to be made miserable, I’ll be miserable at home. You can go to our last picnic as an undivided family without me, the eldest of the family, and I only hope you’ll enjoy it; that’s all!”“Oh, Darsie!” pleaded Lavender tragically, moved almost to tears by the pathos of those last words, and Darsie shrugged her shoulders, philosophically accepting her defeat.“All right, I promise! I’ll hug the remembrance secretly in my own breast. It will cheer me through the dullest hours!”Clemence bridled, but made no further protest. To think of Darsie chuckling in secret was not agreeable, but it was as nothing compared with the humiliation of meeting Dan’s grave stare, and seeing the curl of his lip at the repetition of her high-sounding phrase. As the quickest way of changing the conversation she suggested an adjournment to the morning-room, where mother sat busy over the eternal mending-basket, to broach the picnic project without delay.Mother agreed instantly, eagerly, indeed, so that there was something almost uncanny in the unusualness of the situation. To every demand, every suggestion came the unfailing, “Yes, darlings! Certainly, darlings!” Even the audacity of the double programme aroused no more notice than the remark that it was an admirable idea. Darsie, striking while the iron was hot, went a step farther and attacked the subject of lunch.“Could we—for once—have something substantialler than sandwiches? Chickens?” She gasped at the audacity of the request, for chickens were a state dish, reserved for occasions, and in summer for some inscrutable reasons just because they were smaller cost more than ever. “Chickens cut up are so easy to eat. We needn’t have knives and forks. And little cobby dinner-rolls from the confectioner’s, with crisp, browny crust, cut open and stuffed with butter and potted meat, and little green pieces of lettuce. They had them that way at supper at the Masons’ party, and they were superb! And cakes and fruit! Do, mother, let us have a real swagger lunch just for once!”And mother said, “Yes, darling!” like a lamb, swallowing as it were spring chickens and cobby rolls at a gulp. It was impossible in giving the invitation to the Vernons to refrain from a hint at the magnificence of the preparations, though good manners would, of course, have prompted silence on such a point.The Vernons accepted with acclamation, all except Dan, who rudely declared that he “refused with pleasure,” when Darsie bearded him in his den and proffered the invitation. He was seated at his desk, for the moment the only occupant of the workroom, and his manner was not expressive of welcome to the new-comer. He was a big, heavily built youth, with a face which was oddly attractive despite irregular features and a dull complexion. Dark eyes looked at you straight and square beneath bushy eyebrows; thin lips curved into the oddest, most expressive of lines, the square chin had a fashion of projecting until it seemed to become one of the most eloquent features in his face.Close observation showed that there was a shadow of his upper lip, and rumour had it that he shaved, actuallyshavedevery morning of his life. His huge hands had a grip of steel, but it was wonderful how deft and gentle they could be on occasion. Every album and collection in the house was labelled by Dan, indexed by Dan, embellished with ornamental flourishes and headlines, which Dan’s big fingers alone had the power to produce. Now he leaned an elbow on the desk, turned round on his chair, and tilted that eloquent chin in scorn.“Picnic? Not much. Hate ’em like poison! You don’t want me!”“Wedowant you! We shouldn’t have asked you if we didn’t. Don’t be unsociable, Dan. It’s an extra special occasion, and it would be so much jollier to be complete. The boys will behave better if you’re there.”Dan’s chin tilted still an inch higher. That was of course, but—“I hate a family crowd!” he pronounced tersely. “If there were only one or two, it wouldn’t be so bad. Usual programme, I suppose—pick flowers and eat biscuits? Not much in my line—thank you all the same. Hope you’ll have a good time!”“We’re going to have areallunch—chickens and all sorts of good things, and walk to Oxholm across the fields. It will be much more exciting than the old picnics have been.”“It might easily be that! No, thank you, I’m off. Some other day—”“But we want you, Dan!Iwant you to come.”“ButIdon’t, you see. There’s the difference. Sorry to disoblige.”Darsie regarded him silently, considered the point whether wrath or pathos would be the most powerful weapon, decided rapidly in favour of pathos, and sank with a sigh on to an opposite chair.“Very well. Iquiteunderstand. We wanted you especially because this may be the last, the very last time that one of us girls has any fun this summer, so of course it feels important. But you are so much older—it’s natural that you shouldn’t care. I think you’ve been very nice to be as much with us as you have been... Dan!”“Yes!”“Hannah says it will beme! That Aunt Maria is sure to choose me when she comes. Do you think she will?”“Ten to one, I should say.”“Oh, but why?Why? How can you be so sure?”Dan’s dark eyes surveyed the alert little head, poised on the stem of the graceful throat, his thin lips lengthened in the long, straight line which showed that he was trying not to smile.“Because—er, you appear to me the sort of girl that an erratic old fossil would naturally prefer!”“Ah–h!”—Darsie’s dejection was deep—“Daniel, how cruel!” It was a comforting retaliation to address her tormentor by the name he so cordially disliked, but she remembered her rôle, and looked dejected rather than irate. “I suppose that’s true. Ineeddiscipline, and she would naturally choose the worst of the three. No one wants to be disciplined instead of having a good time, but it may be good for me in the end. All the time you are at sea, happy and free, I shall be being disciplined for my good... Wednesday may be my last, my very last, glad day...”“Bah! Rubbish!” snapped Dan, but he looked at the curly head, and felt a pang of distaste. The idea of Darsie Garnett sobered and disciplined out of recognition was distinctly unpleasant. He wriggled in his chair, and said tentatively: “It will take more than one old lady to tameyou, young woman! You’ll have lots of fun yet—perhaps more than if you’d stayed at home.”Darsie smiled with angelic resignation.“Perhaps so, but it won’t be the samekindof fun. New friends can never be like old. If she chooses me, I must go, because of my duty to father and the rest, but it’s going tohurt! I feel,”—she waved her arms dramatically in the air—“like a flower that is being torn out by the roots! I shall not live long in a strange soil... Well, goodbye, Dan; I won’t bother you any more! Thank you very much for all you’ve done for me in the past.”Done! Dan searched his memory, found therein inscribed a number of snubs, rebuffs, and teasings, but nothing worthy of the thanks so sweetly offered.He felt a stirring of reproach. Darsie was a decent kid—an amusing kid; if she went away she would leave behind her a decided blank. Looking back over the years, Darsie seemed to have played the leading part in the historic exploits of the family. She was growing into quite a big kid now. He glanced at her again quickly, furtively, and drummed with his fingers on the desk—hardly a kid at all, almost grown up!“Oh, that’s all right; don’t worry about that,” he mumbled vaguely. “What a grandiloquent kid you are! I hope you’ll have a better time than you think, if you do go to visit your aunt.”“Thanks so much; I hope I may; and if at any time—anytime—I can do anything to help you, or give you the least—theveryleast—pleasure, please let me know, Dan! I can understand now how one feels when one leaves home and faces the world!” said Darsie poignantly. “G–goodbye!”“Bye,” said Dan coolly. He leaned back in his chair, still thudding with his fingers on the desk. Darsie had reached the door and held it open in her hands before he spoke again. “What time did you say that blessed old picnic is to start?”“Wednesday. Ten o’clock,” said Darsie, and, like a true daughter of Eve, spoke not one more word, but shut the door and left him to his thoughts.“Dan’s coming! You’re not to say a word till the time, but heis!” she announced to her sisters that evening; but when they questioned and cross-questioned concerning the means whereby the miracle had been wrought, she steadfastly refused to satisfy their curiosity. That was not their concern. An inherent loyalty to Dan forbade that she should make public the wiles by which he had been beguiled.

Only four days before Aunt Maria arrived to make her great decision! The Garnetts were living in what Darsie graphically described as “the hush before the storm,” adored, condoned, and indulged by parents who saw before them the pangs of separation, and by brothers shrewdly expectant of parting spoils.

Clemence, Darsie, and Lavender were acutely conscious of the rarified atmosphere by which they were surrounded, and only regretted its necessarily limited duration.

“Let’s take advantage of it!” cried Darsie, the diplomat. “It’s our chance; we should be noodles if we let it slip. Anything we ask now they’ll let us have. It’s like prisoners who can order what they like for supper the night before they’re hanged. Let’s think what we’d like, and go in a body and petition mother. She won’t have the heart to refuse!”

The sisters agreed enthusiastically, but were not rich in suggestions. It is one of the curious things in life that whereas every day one is brought up sharply against a dozen longings and ambitions, without the fulfilment of which it seems impossible to live, yet if the sudden question be put, “What would you have?” instantly the brain becomes a blank, and not a single suggestion is forthcoming. The Garnetts stared at one another in labouring silence. It was too late for parties; too early for pantomimes, a definite gift, failed to meet the case, since each girl thought with a pang, “What’s the use? I might not be here to enjoy it!” Extra indulgences, such as sitting up at night, or being “let off” early morning practising, did not appear sufficiently important, since, with a little scheming, these might be gained in addition. It was Lavender who at last succeeded in hitting the popular taste.

“A picnic! A real whole-day one this time. Lunch in the woods at Earley, tea in our old woman’s cottage, walk over the fields to the amphitheatre, and home by train from Oxholm. Whoever goes with Aunt Maria will be cheated of her holiday, for the well-behaved country doesn’t count. If you have to wear gloves and walk properly, you might as well be in town at once. For the victim’s sake we ought to have one more day in the woods!”

Clemence and Darsie sparkled, for the programme was an opulent one, combining as it did the two ordinary picnics into one. The yearly programme was that—“if you are good”—the Garnett family should be taken for two half-day excursions into the country on two summer Saturday afternoons, but though the woods and the amphitheatre were only separated by three short miles, never yet had the two places been visited together. An all-day picnic seemed a regal entertainment, worthy of the unique occasion.

“Ourselves and the Vernons! Mrs Vernon to talk to mother, then they won’t have as much time to look after us. When they begin on carpets and curtains they forget everything else, and we can do as we like. Do you suppose Dan would come?”

“Sure he wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“My dear!”

Clemence held out eloquent hands. “Does he ever come? He’s a man, soon going to college, and you are only ‘kids.’ I’m older than he is really; a woman is always older than a man, but he doesn’t like me. We are noten rapport.” Clemence tried hard to suppress a smirk of self-consciousness at the use of the French term, while the two younger sisters jeered and booed with the callous brutality of their kind.

“Ha, ha! aren’t we fine? Roll your r’s a little more next time, my dear. It will sound miles better. Your accent leaves much to be desired. Aren’t we grown-up to-day? Aunt Mariawouldbe impressed! A little stay in Paris just to put on the accent, and it’s wonderful to think of what you might do!En rapport! Bet you daren’t say that to Dan! Dare you to tell him that you are noten rapport!”

Clemence was seized with agitation, discerning through the innocent words a thinly veiled threat. If she didn’t, Darsiewould!

“Darsie!” she cried loudly. “You mustn’t tell; you mustnot! It’s mean. Only sneaky children repeat what is said in private. Promise this minute that you won’t say a word!”

But Darsie, like her brothers, was keenly alive to the privilege of holding a rod in pickle over an elder member of the family. So long as Clemence lived in fear of humiliating disclosure, so long might she herself walk in safety, free from rebuffs. She laid her head on one side and smiled sweetly into her sister’s face.

“I shouldn’t like exactly, positively, topromise, don’t you know, for Iamsuch a creature of impulse. If it rushed over me suddenly, it might pop out, don’t you know, bang! before I knew what I was about! Of course, on the other hand, Imightnot—”

“Very well,” snapped Clemence sharply, “then I stay at home! It would be no fun formeto go for a picnic with that sort of thing hanging over my head all the time. I know very well how you’d behave—rolling your eyes across the table, and beginning half-sentences, and introducing ‘en rapport’ every other moment. If I’m going to be made miserable, I’ll be miserable at home. You can go to our last picnic as an undivided family without me, the eldest of the family, and I only hope you’ll enjoy it; that’s all!”

“Oh, Darsie!” pleaded Lavender tragically, moved almost to tears by the pathos of those last words, and Darsie shrugged her shoulders, philosophically accepting her defeat.

“All right, I promise! I’ll hug the remembrance secretly in my own breast. It will cheer me through the dullest hours!”

Clemence bridled, but made no further protest. To think of Darsie chuckling in secret was not agreeable, but it was as nothing compared with the humiliation of meeting Dan’s grave stare, and seeing the curl of his lip at the repetition of her high-sounding phrase. As the quickest way of changing the conversation she suggested an adjournment to the morning-room, where mother sat busy over the eternal mending-basket, to broach the picnic project without delay.

Mother agreed instantly, eagerly, indeed, so that there was something almost uncanny in the unusualness of the situation. To every demand, every suggestion came the unfailing, “Yes, darlings! Certainly, darlings!” Even the audacity of the double programme aroused no more notice than the remark that it was an admirable idea. Darsie, striking while the iron was hot, went a step farther and attacked the subject of lunch.

“Could we—for once—have something substantialler than sandwiches? Chickens?” She gasped at the audacity of the request, for chickens were a state dish, reserved for occasions, and in summer for some inscrutable reasons just because they were smaller cost more than ever. “Chickens cut up are so easy to eat. We needn’t have knives and forks. And little cobby dinner-rolls from the confectioner’s, with crisp, browny crust, cut open and stuffed with butter and potted meat, and little green pieces of lettuce. They had them that way at supper at the Masons’ party, and they were superb! And cakes and fruit! Do, mother, let us have a real swagger lunch just for once!”

And mother said, “Yes, darling!” like a lamb, swallowing as it were spring chickens and cobby rolls at a gulp. It was impossible in giving the invitation to the Vernons to refrain from a hint at the magnificence of the preparations, though good manners would, of course, have prompted silence on such a point.

The Vernons accepted with acclamation, all except Dan, who rudely declared that he “refused with pleasure,” when Darsie bearded him in his den and proffered the invitation. He was seated at his desk, for the moment the only occupant of the workroom, and his manner was not expressive of welcome to the new-comer. He was a big, heavily built youth, with a face which was oddly attractive despite irregular features and a dull complexion. Dark eyes looked at you straight and square beneath bushy eyebrows; thin lips curved into the oddest, most expressive of lines, the square chin had a fashion of projecting until it seemed to become one of the most eloquent features in his face.

Close observation showed that there was a shadow of his upper lip, and rumour had it that he shaved, actuallyshavedevery morning of his life. His huge hands had a grip of steel, but it was wonderful how deft and gentle they could be on occasion. Every album and collection in the house was labelled by Dan, indexed by Dan, embellished with ornamental flourishes and headlines, which Dan’s big fingers alone had the power to produce. Now he leaned an elbow on the desk, turned round on his chair, and tilted that eloquent chin in scorn.

“Picnic? Not much. Hate ’em like poison! You don’t want me!”

“Wedowant you! We shouldn’t have asked you if we didn’t. Don’t be unsociable, Dan. It’s an extra special occasion, and it would be so much jollier to be complete. The boys will behave better if you’re there.”

Dan’s chin tilted still an inch higher. That was of course, but—

“I hate a family crowd!” he pronounced tersely. “If there were only one or two, it wouldn’t be so bad. Usual programme, I suppose—pick flowers and eat biscuits? Not much in my line—thank you all the same. Hope you’ll have a good time!”

“We’re going to have areallunch—chickens and all sorts of good things, and walk to Oxholm across the fields. It will be much more exciting than the old picnics have been.”

“It might easily be that! No, thank you, I’m off. Some other day—”

“But we want you, Dan!Iwant you to come.”

“ButIdon’t, you see. There’s the difference. Sorry to disoblige.”

Darsie regarded him silently, considered the point whether wrath or pathos would be the most powerful weapon, decided rapidly in favour of pathos, and sank with a sigh on to an opposite chair.

“Very well. Iquiteunderstand. We wanted you especially because this may be the last, the very last time that one of us girls has any fun this summer, so of course it feels important. But you are so much older—it’s natural that you shouldn’t care. I think you’ve been very nice to be as much with us as you have been... Dan!”

“Yes!”

“Hannah says it will beme! That Aunt Maria is sure to choose me when she comes. Do you think she will?”

“Ten to one, I should say.”

“Oh, but why?Why? How can you be so sure?”

Dan’s dark eyes surveyed the alert little head, poised on the stem of the graceful throat, his thin lips lengthened in the long, straight line which showed that he was trying not to smile.

“Because—er, you appear to me the sort of girl that an erratic old fossil would naturally prefer!”

“Ah–h!”—Darsie’s dejection was deep—“Daniel, how cruel!” It was a comforting retaliation to address her tormentor by the name he so cordially disliked, but she remembered her rôle, and looked dejected rather than irate. “I suppose that’s true. Ineeddiscipline, and she would naturally choose the worst of the three. No one wants to be disciplined instead of having a good time, but it may be good for me in the end. All the time you are at sea, happy and free, I shall be being disciplined for my good... Wednesday may be my last, my very last, glad day...”

“Bah! Rubbish!” snapped Dan, but he looked at the curly head, and felt a pang of distaste. The idea of Darsie Garnett sobered and disciplined out of recognition was distinctly unpleasant. He wriggled in his chair, and said tentatively: “It will take more than one old lady to tameyou, young woman! You’ll have lots of fun yet—perhaps more than if you’d stayed at home.”

Darsie smiled with angelic resignation.

“Perhaps so, but it won’t be the samekindof fun. New friends can never be like old. If she chooses me, I must go, because of my duty to father and the rest, but it’s going tohurt! I feel,”—she waved her arms dramatically in the air—“like a flower that is being torn out by the roots! I shall not live long in a strange soil... Well, goodbye, Dan; I won’t bother you any more! Thank you very much for all you’ve done for me in the past.”

Done! Dan searched his memory, found therein inscribed a number of snubs, rebuffs, and teasings, but nothing worthy of the thanks so sweetly offered.

He felt a stirring of reproach. Darsie was a decent kid—an amusing kid; if she went away she would leave behind her a decided blank. Looking back over the years, Darsie seemed to have played the leading part in the historic exploits of the family. She was growing into quite a big kid now. He glanced at her again quickly, furtively, and drummed with his fingers on the desk—hardly a kid at all, almost grown up!

“Oh, that’s all right; don’t worry about that,” he mumbled vaguely. “What a grandiloquent kid you are! I hope you’ll have a better time than you think, if you do go to visit your aunt.”

“Thanks so much; I hope I may; and if at any time—anytime—I can do anything to help you, or give you the least—theveryleast—pleasure, please let me know, Dan! I can understand now how one feels when one leaves home and faces the world!” said Darsie poignantly. “G–goodbye!”

“Bye,” said Dan coolly. He leaned back in his chair, still thudding with his fingers on the desk. Darsie had reached the door and held it open in her hands before he spoke again. “What time did you say that blessed old picnic is to start?”

“Wednesday. Ten o’clock,” said Darsie, and, like a true daughter of Eve, spoke not one more word, but shut the door and left him to his thoughts.

“Dan’s coming! You’re not to say a word till the time, but heis!” she announced to her sisters that evening; but when they questioned and cross-questioned concerning the means whereby the miracle had been wrought, she steadfastly refused to satisfy their curiosity. That was not their concern. An inherent loyalty to Dan forbade that she should make public the wiles by which he had been beguiled.

Chapter Five.Left Behind!Wednesday dawned bright and fair; it had not seemed possible that it could be wet, and the party of twelve, with their baskets and hampers, drove economically and gaily to the ferry in a three-horse omnibus, so ostentatiously treating it as their own vehicle that the few alien passengers sat abashed, and plainly felt themselvesde trop. Darsie’s prophecy had been fulfilled, for Dan appeared at the starting-point, somewhat grim and sulky of demeanour, but obviously on picnic bent. He was the only member of the party whose hands were free of basket or bundle, and when the omnibus trundled into sight he walked forward to meet it and swung himself up to a place on top as though anxious to convince beholders that he had no connection with the noisy crowd at the corner, whereupon the two mothers smiled at each other in amused reminiscent fashion.The girls were dressed in white; the boys wore flannel trousers with school blazers and caps. Clemence had put on a veil to protect her complexion; plain Hannah’s sailor hat left yards of forehead bleakly exposed. Darsie wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder in jaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on such occasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; the programme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract any attention among her companions.The omnibus conveyed the party to the ferry, from whence an hourly boat puffed several miles up the river to where the village of Earley stood on the opposite bank. It was an ancient and by no means luxurious barque, impregnated from bow to stern with a hot, oily, funnelly smell from which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley were almost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were in attendance. There was an old man in a long coat who had played the same ballads on the same old concertina with the same incredibly dirty fingers for as long as memory could recall; there was an old woman with a clean apron and a tray of gingerbread biscuits slung pendant from her shoulders, who presented them to you for three a penny, and exclaimed, “Bless yer little ’art!” when you paid for them yourself, because mother said it was a pity to spoil your lunch. Deary me! onewouldhave to be old to have one’s appetite—and a picnic appetite at that!—spoiled by three gingerbread biscuits! The sail to Earley would have been shorn of one of its chief joys without these sticky sweets. The absence of the clean, smiling old woman would have been resented as a positive crime.The ferry at Earley was an old-fashioned affair, sloping over the muddy shore to a little white pay-house with a clanky turnpike on either side. Once past these turnpikes, the visitor found himself in the midst of things with delightful suddenness. A wide green stretch of grass lay along the river bank, bordered by shady trees. To the right stood a stone hotel with gardens of brilliant flower-beds, and an array of white-covered tables dotted down the length of the veranda. Grand and luxurious visitors took their meals in the hotel, but such a possibility of splendour had never dawned upon the minds of the Garnetts or their friends—as well might a wayfarer in Hyde Park think of asking for a cup of tea at Buckingham Palace! To-day a young girl stood in the porch of the hotel and gazed at the procession as it passed. She was arrayed in a white serge coat and skirt, and wore a white sailor hat with a blue band. “Exactly like yours!” said Lavender easily, but Clemence shook her head in sad denial.Hercoat and skirt had been bought ready-made at a sale, was an inch too short in the waist, and cockled at the seams; her hat was last year’s shape, while the girl in the porch had just—the—very—latest and most perfect specimen of both.“Horrid thing, lunching in hotels in clothes like that! Some people have all the luck!” said Clemence grudgingly, as she moved the heavy basket from one hand to the other to screen it from the gaze of the aristocratic eyes; and the girl in the porch spied it all the same, and sighed to herself wistfully: “They are going picnicking—all those boys and girls! Oh, how lovely to be them. How IwishI were a big family...” after the manner of the ungrateful people of this world, who are so much occupied in envying the possessions of others that they have no time left in which to be thankful for their own!The woods lay not a hundred yards from the ferry itself—real, natural, untrammelled woods, with grand old trunks standing up tall and straight like the columns of a cathedral, and dear old gnarled roots which ran along the ground, covered with lichens and soft green moss. To young people who spent their lives in one red-brick terrace looking out on another red-brick terrace across the road, it was like a voyage into fairyland to step within the cool, green shadow of the woods, to smell the sweet, sharp smell of the earth, and watch the dapplings of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Even the boys succumbed to the spell, and for the first half-hour asked nothing better than to roll about on the grass, poke in the roots of trees, and speculate concerning rabbit-holes and nests; but the half-hour over, one and all were convinced that watches were wrong and they were right in deciding that it was beyond all manner of doubt full time for lunch; so the cloth was spread on a level piece of turf, and the good things were consumed with the lingering enjoyment which they deserved.Every one felt that, as lunch marked what was perhaps the most enjoyable epoch of the whole day, it was his or her bounden duty to eat slowly and to go on demanding helpings so long as the supply endured; and a certain feeling of blankness descended when there was no longer any excuse for lingering, inasmuch as nothing remained to be eaten but a dozen jam puffs, which, as mother said, had beenmeantto be very nice, but had somehow failed to achieve success! The paste, hard enough on top, was inside of a damp and doughy consistence, and cook had used gooseberry jam for the filling, thereby taking a mean advantage of absence from home, when sheknewthat the family detested gooseberry in tarts, and steadily plumped for apricot instead.“We’ll give them to the little boy at the ferry.Hewon’t be so particular!” Mrs Garnett said as she laid the rejected dainties on one side and proceeded to pack the oddments which had been required for the meal in one small basket, placing layers of paper in those left empty. The young people looked at each other with raised eyebrows as they watched these proceedings, the meaning of which they knew only too well. It was forbidden to gather roots from the woods, but no authority had dreamt of forbidding visitors to carry awaysoil, and this was just what Mrs Garnett invariably insisted upon doing. The red-brown earth, rich with sweet fragments of leaf and twig, was too tempting to be resisted when she thought of her poor pot-bound plants at home; therefore, instead of swinging homewards with baskets light as air, the boys were doomed to bear even heavier weights than on the outward journey.“Mother!” cried Clemence in a deep tone of protest. “Notyet! Remember the walk across the fields. Plenty of time to get soil in the Amphitheatre!” And Mrs Garnett put down her trowel with quite a guilty air and resigned herself to wait.“Well! Perhaps it would be best ... Mrs Vernon and I would like an hour’s rest before going on. What areyougoing to do now?”Every one waited for every one else, and no suggestion was forthcoming. The boys were once more beginning to roll about on the grass, poking and pulling at each other in a manner which foretold the beginning of war. Clemence and Vie were gazing sentimentally through the branches. Plain Hannah, stretched flat along the ground, was barricading the movements of a tiny beetle, and chuckling over its persistent efforts to outwit her schemes. Dan sat with arms clasped around his knees, a picture of patience on a monument. The sight of his twisted lips, his tilted, disconsolate chin fired Darsie to action. It was her doing that he was here at all; it was her duty to make the time pass as agreeably as possible.“Sports!” she cried quickly. “Competitive sports. We’ll each plan an event, and take them in turns. Dan shall be judge, and the one who gets most marks shall have a prize.”“What prize?”That was a stumper. Darsie could suggest nothing better than a general subscription.“If we each paid a penny entrance—”“Oh, be bothered the pennies! I’ll give a prize!” cried Dan loftily. Darsie saw with joy that he had brisked up at the prospect of sports and was already beginning to cast his eye around in professional manner, taking in the lie of the land, the outstanding features of the position. As judge and manager he was in his element, and each suggestion of an event was altered and amended with a lordly superiority. It is somewhat difficult to introduce much variety into a programme of impromptu sports, but one or two of this afternoon’s events had the advantage of novelty. A flower-gathering race, for instance, the object of which was to see how many varieties of wild flowers each competitor could gather in a given time, and a Roman water-carrier event, which consisted in balancing the hot-water jug on one’s head and seeing how far one could walk without spilling its tepid contents over neck and shoulders. Plain Hannah was the only one of the girls who took part in this event, and to her joy succeeded in travelling a longer distance than any of the male competitors. The final and most elaborate event was the obstacle race, without which no competition of the kind is ever considered complete, and the united wits of the company were put to work to devise traps for their own undoing. Harry discovered two small trees whose trunks grew so close together that it seemed impossible that any human creature could squeeze between, and insisted upon it being done as asine qua non. Russell decreed that competitors should travel over a certain route without touching the ground, swinging themselves from branch to branch like so many monkeys, and as girls were plainly disqualified for this feat an alternative test was invented which should score equally to their credit. Hopping races, races complicated by arithmetical and other such baffling problems, were also devised, and at the last moment Darsie came forward with a thrilling novelty.“Run to the hamper, turn round three times, seize a jam puff, eat it in two bites, and hop back to the goal!”“Good!” cried the judge approvingly, and after that the competitors might storm and lament as they would; the event was fixed!The two mothers had retired from the scene of the fray and with backs resting against two friendly trees were peacefully discoursing on household trials; there was no one to preach concerning indigestion, and the perils of rapid eating; hot and gasping from their previous trials, the competitors ran, twirled, hopped and gobbled, and finally subsided in paroxysms of laughter on the mossy bank. The sports were over; the prize had fallen to Russell, as every one had known from the start that it must inevitably do; he sat snoring with pride, waving aside Dan’s inquiries as to the nature of his prize in a gentlemanly manner worthy of his reputation, until the two mothers, becoming conscious that the afternoon was passing away, rose heavily from their seats and announced that it was time to start on the second half of the day’s expedition.The three-mile walk lay for three parts of the way through fields, which to the town-livers afforded a refreshing change from noisy and dusty streets, and when the little village was reached, “our old woman’s cottage” was found to be as clean and neat and hospitably attractive as of yore. It was a tiny whitewashed cottage standing back from the lane in a garden bright with old-fashioned flowers, and the stone-floored kitchen boasted an old oak dresser and table which were the envy of all beholders.“They’re always after it!” our old woman would announce, chuckling. “Titled gentry I’ve had, driving up in their own carriage, a-coaxing and wheedling so as never was. ‘No,’ I says, ‘they was my mother’s afore me, and her mother’s afore that, and it’s a poor tale if I can’t have the pleasure of them whileIlive! If it’s waluable to you, it’s waluable to me, too. That’s only common sense...’ And what’s your fancy today, lovies? boiled eggs and buttered toast, same as afore?”Boiled eggs and buttered toast it was, despite the protests of the mothers, who thought that really, after such a lunch—! And after tea our old woman provided buttonholes for each member of the party, and hobbled to the gate to see them off, assuring them, as was her yearly custom, that “the gamekeepers was getting very crusty of late, but you leave the roots alone and nobody can’t say nothing about a few bits of flowers.” That yearly threat of the gamekeeper lent asoupçonof excitement to the scramble over the sloping woods, which surrounded as an amphitheatre a deep green meadow through which meandered a tiny stream.At any moment, as it appeared, a stalwart figure in velveteen bearing a gun over his shoulder might appear round the trunk of a tree, demanding your licence or your life. It was interesting to discuss exactly what you would do or say under the circumstances, and the very worst thing in punishments which could possibly be your fate!To-day, however, no such interruption took place, and the dear old playground looked, if possible, more beautiful than ever. The ground was carpeted with buttercups, and when one stood on the top of the steep banks and looked down on the green and the gold, and caught glimpses of the blue sky beyond—well, it was as near an approach to fairyland as one could hope to find within twenty miles of a big manufacturing town.Mrs Garnett packed her basket full of the soft, loamy soil; the girls roamed up and down making up bouquets of wild roses, honeysuckle, and fragrant meadowsweet; the boys were blissfully happy, risking life and limb in an exciting endeavour to travel from top to bottom of the bank without once touching grass. An occasional tree-trunk was permitted as a foothold, otherwise you swung yourself from one branch to another, or took flying leaps into space, and trusted to fate to catch hold of something before you fell.Russell’s hairbreadth escapes would have terrified his mother had she been there to see, but the boys were wise in their generation and had quietly worked their way round to the opposite bank before beginning their experiments. It took a considerable time to call them back and rally forces in time to catch the eight o’clock train, and it was a dishevelled and by no means aristocratic-looking party which climbed over the high stone stile leading into the high-road.It seemed hard luck that this last mile, when every one was feeling tired and a trifle flat, should have to be traversed along a dusty, uninteresting road, and the straggly line grew even farther and farther apart as the distance to the station decreased. Dan led the way, walking in the middle of the road, his head flung back with the old proud air of detachment. The two mothers plodded steadily in the rear. Russell, scratched and dusty, and looking more like a street arab than a youth renowned for gentlemanly demeanour, scuffled in the gutter, kicking up the gathered dust which enveloped him as in a cloud; Harry and John bore the big hamper slung on a stick, the ends of which they frequently released for the purpose of straightening their backs and rubbing their tired hands. Plain Hannah limped on the sideway, being afflicted with corns which, as she expressed it, always “came on” at the end of a day’s pleasuring. Vie and Clemence, arm-in-arm, were deep in sentimental conclave. Darsie, the last of the line, hung back of intent until a curve in the road hid the others from sight. A shadow of melancholy had descended upon her spirit during the last hour; that fear of “the last time” which at times makes cowards of us all, was strong upon her; the possibility of separation suddenly became a terror which gripped her breath and left her faint and weak.Mother—Father—Home! The dear delights of the sea. Could she—could shebearto give them up? Darsie whimpered miserably, and stopped short in the middle of the road to pull out her handkerchief, and wipe a threatening tear. She really did not think she could, and yet every one seemed to take it for granted that Aunt Maria’s choice would fall upon herself. Was there nothing, nothing that she could do to lessen the probability? Nothing to make herself look ugly, unattractive, unsuited for the post of lady’s companion?A stranger walking along the high-road at this moment would have been amused to see a pretty, disconsolate-looking young girl deliberately twisting her features into one grimace after another, and critically examining the effect in the back of a small silver watch. Every new grimace necessitated a pause for inspection, so that the distance between Darsie and her companions increased more and more, until on turning the next corner of the winding road she was surprised to find no one in sight—surprised and a trifle startled, for the early dusk was already casting its shadow over the landscape, and the solitude of a country road has in it something eerie to a lifelong dweller in towns. Darsie forgot her grimaces and set off at a trot to make up lost ground, and even as she ran a sound came from afar which quickened the trot into a run—the scream of an engine! the engine of the approaching train which was to bear the picnickers back to town.The next turn of the road showed that the rest of the party had taken alarm also, for the flying figures of Vie and Clemence could be seen disappearing in the distance, evidently following hastily after those in front.“They’ll catch it—they’ll rush down the steps just as it’s going to start, bundle in anyhow, into different carriages—never miss me—go off, never know I’m not there till they get out!” These thoughts rushed through Darsie’s head as she ran gaspingly along the dusty road. It was imperative that she must catch up to her friends—to be left behind, without a penny in her pocket to buy a ticket, would be too awful for words. The shriek of the engine had given place to a repeated snort which was momentarily growing slower and less pronounced; the train was slackening speed before drawing up at the platform.Faster! Faster! One rush to reach the goal! Darsie set her teeth and put on a last desperate spurt, caught her foot on an outstanding stone of the roadway, and fell heavily to the ground.

Wednesday dawned bright and fair; it had not seemed possible that it could be wet, and the party of twelve, with their baskets and hampers, drove economically and gaily to the ferry in a three-horse omnibus, so ostentatiously treating it as their own vehicle that the few alien passengers sat abashed, and plainly felt themselvesde trop. Darsie’s prophecy had been fulfilled, for Dan appeared at the starting-point, somewhat grim and sulky of demeanour, but obviously on picnic bent. He was the only member of the party whose hands were free of basket or bundle, and when the omnibus trundled into sight he walked forward to meet it and swung himself up to a place on top as though anxious to convince beholders that he had no connection with the noisy crowd at the corner, whereupon the two mothers smiled at each other in amused reminiscent fashion.

The girls were dressed in white; the boys wore flannel trousers with school blazers and caps. Clemence had put on a veil to protect her complexion; plain Hannah’s sailor hat left yards of forehead bleakly exposed. Darsie wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder in jaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on such occasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; the programme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract any attention among her companions.

The omnibus conveyed the party to the ferry, from whence an hourly boat puffed several miles up the river to where the village of Earley stood on the opposite bank. It was an ancient and by no means luxurious barque, impregnated from bow to stern with a hot, oily, funnelly smell from which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley were almost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were in attendance. There was an old man in a long coat who had played the same ballads on the same old concertina with the same incredibly dirty fingers for as long as memory could recall; there was an old woman with a clean apron and a tray of gingerbread biscuits slung pendant from her shoulders, who presented them to you for three a penny, and exclaimed, “Bless yer little ’art!” when you paid for them yourself, because mother said it was a pity to spoil your lunch. Deary me! onewouldhave to be old to have one’s appetite—and a picnic appetite at that!—spoiled by three gingerbread biscuits! The sail to Earley would have been shorn of one of its chief joys without these sticky sweets. The absence of the clean, smiling old woman would have been resented as a positive crime.

The ferry at Earley was an old-fashioned affair, sloping over the muddy shore to a little white pay-house with a clanky turnpike on either side. Once past these turnpikes, the visitor found himself in the midst of things with delightful suddenness. A wide green stretch of grass lay along the river bank, bordered by shady trees. To the right stood a stone hotel with gardens of brilliant flower-beds, and an array of white-covered tables dotted down the length of the veranda. Grand and luxurious visitors took their meals in the hotel, but such a possibility of splendour had never dawned upon the minds of the Garnetts or their friends—as well might a wayfarer in Hyde Park think of asking for a cup of tea at Buckingham Palace! To-day a young girl stood in the porch of the hotel and gazed at the procession as it passed. She was arrayed in a white serge coat and skirt, and wore a white sailor hat with a blue band. “Exactly like yours!” said Lavender easily, but Clemence shook her head in sad denial.Hercoat and skirt had been bought ready-made at a sale, was an inch too short in the waist, and cockled at the seams; her hat was last year’s shape, while the girl in the porch had just—the—very—latest and most perfect specimen of both.

“Horrid thing, lunching in hotels in clothes like that! Some people have all the luck!” said Clemence grudgingly, as she moved the heavy basket from one hand to the other to screen it from the gaze of the aristocratic eyes; and the girl in the porch spied it all the same, and sighed to herself wistfully: “They are going picnicking—all those boys and girls! Oh, how lovely to be them. How IwishI were a big family...” after the manner of the ungrateful people of this world, who are so much occupied in envying the possessions of others that they have no time left in which to be thankful for their own!

The woods lay not a hundred yards from the ferry itself—real, natural, untrammelled woods, with grand old trunks standing up tall and straight like the columns of a cathedral, and dear old gnarled roots which ran along the ground, covered with lichens and soft green moss. To young people who spent their lives in one red-brick terrace looking out on another red-brick terrace across the road, it was like a voyage into fairyland to step within the cool, green shadow of the woods, to smell the sweet, sharp smell of the earth, and watch the dapplings of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Even the boys succumbed to the spell, and for the first half-hour asked nothing better than to roll about on the grass, poke in the roots of trees, and speculate concerning rabbit-holes and nests; but the half-hour over, one and all were convinced that watches were wrong and they were right in deciding that it was beyond all manner of doubt full time for lunch; so the cloth was spread on a level piece of turf, and the good things were consumed with the lingering enjoyment which they deserved.

Every one felt that, as lunch marked what was perhaps the most enjoyable epoch of the whole day, it was his or her bounden duty to eat slowly and to go on demanding helpings so long as the supply endured; and a certain feeling of blankness descended when there was no longer any excuse for lingering, inasmuch as nothing remained to be eaten but a dozen jam puffs, which, as mother said, had beenmeantto be very nice, but had somehow failed to achieve success! The paste, hard enough on top, was inside of a damp and doughy consistence, and cook had used gooseberry jam for the filling, thereby taking a mean advantage of absence from home, when sheknewthat the family detested gooseberry in tarts, and steadily plumped for apricot instead.

“We’ll give them to the little boy at the ferry.Hewon’t be so particular!” Mrs Garnett said as she laid the rejected dainties on one side and proceeded to pack the oddments which had been required for the meal in one small basket, placing layers of paper in those left empty. The young people looked at each other with raised eyebrows as they watched these proceedings, the meaning of which they knew only too well. It was forbidden to gather roots from the woods, but no authority had dreamt of forbidding visitors to carry awaysoil, and this was just what Mrs Garnett invariably insisted upon doing. The red-brown earth, rich with sweet fragments of leaf and twig, was too tempting to be resisted when she thought of her poor pot-bound plants at home; therefore, instead of swinging homewards with baskets light as air, the boys were doomed to bear even heavier weights than on the outward journey.

“Mother!” cried Clemence in a deep tone of protest. “Notyet! Remember the walk across the fields. Plenty of time to get soil in the Amphitheatre!” And Mrs Garnett put down her trowel with quite a guilty air and resigned herself to wait.

“Well! Perhaps it would be best ... Mrs Vernon and I would like an hour’s rest before going on. What areyougoing to do now?”

Every one waited for every one else, and no suggestion was forthcoming. The boys were once more beginning to roll about on the grass, poking and pulling at each other in a manner which foretold the beginning of war. Clemence and Vie were gazing sentimentally through the branches. Plain Hannah, stretched flat along the ground, was barricading the movements of a tiny beetle, and chuckling over its persistent efforts to outwit her schemes. Dan sat with arms clasped around his knees, a picture of patience on a monument. The sight of his twisted lips, his tilted, disconsolate chin fired Darsie to action. It was her doing that he was here at all; it was her duty to make the time pass as agreeably as possible.

“Sports!” she cried quickly. “Competitive sports. We’ll each plan an event, and take them in turns. Dan shall be judge, and the one who gets most marks shall have a prize.”

“What prize?”

That was a stumper. Darsie could suggest nothing better than a general subscription.

“If we each paid a penny entrance—”

“Oh, be bothered the pennies! I’ll give a prize!” cried Dan loftily. Darsie saw with joy that he had brisked up at the prospect of sports and was already beginning to cast his eye around in professional manner, taking in the lie of the land, the outstanding features of the position. As judge and manager he was in his element, and each suggestion of an event was altered and amended with a lordly superiority. It is somewhat difficult to introduce much variety into a programme of impromptu sports, but one or two of this afternoon’s events had the advantage of novelty. A flower-gathering race, for instance, the object of which was to see how many varieties of wild flowers each competitor could gather in a given time, and a Roman water-carrier event, which consisted in balancing the hot-water jug on one’s head and seeing how far one could walk without spilling its tepid contents over neck and shoulders. Plain Hannah was the only one of the girls who took part in this event, and to her joy succeeded in travelling a longer distance than any of the male competitors. The final and most elaborate event was the obstacle race, without which no competition of the kind is ever considered complete, and the united wits of the company were put to work to devise traps for their own undoing. Harry discovered two small trees whose trunks grew so close together that it seemed impossible that any human creature could squeeze between, and insisted upon it being done as asine qua non. Russell decreed that competitors should travel over a certain route without touching the ground, swinging themselves from branch to branch like so many monkeys, and as girls were plainly disqualified for this feat an alternative test was invented which should score equally to their credit. Hopping races, races complicated by arithmetical and other such baffling problems, were also devised, and at the last moment Darsie came forward with a thrilling novelty.

“Run to the hamper, turn round three times, seize a jam puff, eat it in two bites, and hop back to the goal!”

“Good!” cried the judge approvingly, and after that the competitors might storm and lament as they would; the event was fixed!

The two mothers had retired from the scene of the fray and with backs resting against two friendly trees were peacefully discoursing on household trials; there was no one to preach concerning indigestion, and the perils of rapid eating; hot and gasping from their previous trials, the competitors ran, twirled, hopped and gobbled, and finally subsided in paroxysms of laughter on the mossy bank. The sports were over; the prize had fallen to Russell, as every one had known from the start that it must inevitably do; he sat snoring with pride, waving aside Dan’s inquiries as to the nature of his prize in a gentlemanly manner worthy of his reputation, until the two mothers, becoming conscious that the afternoon was passing away, rose heavily from their seats and announced that it was time to start on the second half of the day’s expedition.

The three-mile walk lay for three parts of the way through fields, which to the town-livers afforded a refreshing change from noisy and dusty streets, and when the little village was reached, “our old woman’s cottage” was found to be as clean and neat and hospitably attractive as of yore. It was a tiny whitewashed cottage standing back from the lane in a garden bright with old-fashioned flowers, and the stone-floored kitchen boasted an old oak dresser and table which were the envy of all beholders.

“They’re always after it!” our old woman would announce, chuckling. “Titled gentry I’ve had, driving up in their own carriage, a-coaxing and wheedling so as never was. ‘No,’ I says, ‘they was my mother’s afore me, and her mother’s afore that, and it’s a poor tale if I can’t have the pleasure of them whileIlive! If it’s waluable to you, it’s waluable to me, too. That’s only common sense...’ And what’s your fancy today, lovies? boiled eggs and buttered toast, same as afore?”

Boiled eggs and buttered toast it was, despite the protests of the mothers, who thought that really, after such a lunch—! And after tea our old woman provided buttonholes for each member of the party, and hobbled to the gate to see them off, assuring them, as was her yearly custom, that “the gamekeepers was getting very crusty of late, but you leave the roots alone and nobody can’t say nothing about a few bits of flowers.” That yearly threat of the gamekeeper lent asoupçonof excitement to the scramble over the sloping woods, which surrounded as an amphitheatre a deep green meadow through which meandered a tiny stream.

At any moment, as it appeared, a stalwart figure in velveteen bearing a gun over his shoulder might appear round the trunk of a tree, demanding your licence or your life. It was interesting to discuss exactly what you would do or say under the circumstances, and the very worst thing in punishments which could possibly be your fate!

To-day, however, no such interruption took place, and the dear old playground looked, if possible, more beautiful than ever. The ground was carpeted with buttercups, and when one stood on the top of the steep banks and looked down on the green and the gold, and caught glimpses of the blue sky beyond—well, it was as near an approach to fairyland as one could hope to find within twenty miles of a big manufacturing town.

Mrs Garnett packed her basket full of the soft, loamy soil; the girls roamed up and down making up bouquets of wild roses, honeysuckle, and fragrant meadowsweet; the boys were blissfully happy, risking life and limb in an exciting endeavour to travel from top to bottom of the bank without once touching grass. An occasional tree-trunk was permitted as a foothold, otherwise you swung yourself from one branch to another, or took flying leaps into space, and trusted to fate to catch hold of something before you fell.

Russell’s hairbreadth escapes would have terrified his mother had she been there to see, but the boys were wise in their generation and had quietly worked their way round to the opposite bank before beginning their experiments. It took a considerable time to call them back and rally forces in time to catch the eight o’clock train, and it was a dishevelled and by no means aristocratic-looking party which climbed over the high stone stile leading into the high-road.

It seemed hard luck that this last mile, when every one was feeling tired and a trifle flat, should have to be traversed along a dusty, uninteresting road, and the straggly line grew even farther and farther apart as the distance to the station decreased. Dan led the way, walking in the middle of the road, his head flung back with the old proud air of detachment. The two mothers plodded steadily in the rear. Russell, scratched and dusty, and looking more like a street arab than a youth renowned for gentlemanly demeanour, scuffled in the gutter, kicking up the gathered dust which enveloped him as in a cloud; Harry and John bore the big hamper slung on a stick, the ends of which they frequently released for the purpose of straightening their backs and rubbing their tired hands. Plain Hannah limped on the sideway, being afflicted with corns which, as she expressed it, always “came on” at the end of a day’s pleasuring. Vie and Clemence, arm-in-arm, were deep in sentimental conclave. Darsie, the last of the line, hung back of intent until a curve in the road hid the others from sight. A shadow of melancholy had descended upon her spirit during the last hour; that fear of “the last time” which at times makes cowards of us all, was strong upon her; the possibility of separation suddenly became a terror which gripped her breath and left her faint and weak.

Mother—Father—Home! The dear delights of the sea. Could she—could shebearto give them up? Darsie whimpered miserably, and stopped short in the middle of the road to pull out her handkerchief, and wipe a threatening tear. She really did not think she could, and yet every one seemed to take it for granted that Aunt Maria’s choice would fall upon herself. Was there nothing, nothing that she could do to lessen the probability? Nothing to make herself look ugly, unattractive, unsuited for the post of lady’s companion?

A stranger walking along the high-road at this moment would have been amused to see a pretty, disconsolate-looking young girl deliberately twisting her features into one grimace after another, and critically examining the effect in the back of a small silver watch. Every new grimace necessitated a pause for inspection, so that the distance between Darsie and her companions increased more and more, until on turning the next corner of the winding road she was surprised to find no one in sight—surprised and a trifle startled, for the early dusk was already casting its shadow over the landscape, and the solitude of a country road has in it something eerie to a lifelong dweller in towns. Darsie forgot her grimaces and set off at a trot to make up lost ground, and even as she ran a sound came from afar which quickened the trot into a run—the scream of an engine! the engine of the approaching train which was to bear the picnickers back to town.

The next turn of the road showed that the rest of the party had taken alarm also, for the flying figures of Vie and Clemence could be seen disappearing in the distance, evidently following hastily after those in front.

“They’ll catch it—they’ll rush down the steps just as it’s going to start, bundle in anyhow, into different carriages—never miss me—go off, never know I’m not there till they get out!” These thoughts rushed through Darsie’s head as she ran gaspingly along the dusty road. It was imperative that she must catch up to her friends—to be left behind, without a penny in her pocket to buy a ticket, would be too awful for words. The shriek of the engine had given place to a repeated snort which was momentarily growing slower and less pronounced; the train was slackening speed before drawing up at the platform.

Faster! Faster! One rush to reach the goal! Darsie set her teeth and put on a last desperate spurt, caught her foot on an outstanding stone of the roadway, and fell heavily to the ground.

Chapter Six.Dan to the Rescue.There were no bones broken; she was not seriously hurt; but one has to try for oneself the experiment of running at full tilt, and while so doing to pitch forward at full length on the ground, to realise how extremely disagreeable and disconcerting it can be. Darsie dragged herself slowly to a sitting position, and sat dazed and stupefied, a forlorn, dust-encrusted figure, with hat tilted rakishly on one side, and the palm of her right hand scratched to bleeding where it had dragged along the stony ground. She blinked and stared, and mechanically brushed at her blackened skirts, but it was several moments before remembrance of her position returned to her brain, and with it the realisation of the consequences of delay. She scrambled to her feet, ran forward for a few paces, and stopped short with a sharp groan of pain. She had bruised her knees as well as her hand, and the rapid movement was quite startlingly painful; she fell into a limp, straining her head upwards to peep over the hedgerow at the road beyond. And then, clear and distinct after the interval of silence, came another sharp whistle, another laborious puff, puff, puff.The train was leaving the station, and she was left behind!Darsie stopped short, and leaned against the hedge. There was no longer any need to hurry. Either her absence had been discovered or it had not, and a few minutes’ time would settle that question once for all. It soothed her to pretend that there was a chance that she might find some one waiting her arrival on the platform, but at the bottom of her heart she had little hope of such a possibility. As members of a large family whose parents were not rich enough to pay for the modern plethora of nurses and governesses, the Garnetts and Vernons had been brought up to be independent, and to fend for themselves, hence the two mothers would not be so anxious to count the number of their brood, to see that each member was safe and sound, as would have been the parents of smaller, more indulged families.There would be a rush for tickets, a hurried glance around on emerging from the office, the signal of waving hands, and bobbing heads from half a dozen windows, a quick leap into the nearest seats, and off they would all steam, panting and puffing, congratulating themselves on their escape.No, Darsie told herself, it was stupid to pretend; certainly, quite certainly she was left behind; nevertheless, when two or three minutes later she reached the top of the railway bridge and peered over the stone wall, it was with quite a big pang of dismay that she beheld the empty platform. Not a soul! Not a single soul except a cross-looking porter sitting astride a barrow, with his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.Anything less promising in the shape of a forlorn hope it would be difficult to imagine, but the circumstances offered no alternative. Darsie took her courage in both hands and marched boldly towards him.“Please will you tell me the time of the next train from town?”The porter rolled his eye sideways, surveyed her up and down, formed an evidently poor opinion, and without a change of position muttered a curt reply—“Ten-thirty.”“Ten-thirty!” Dismay at the lateness of the hour struggled with wounded pride at the man’s lack of respect. Half-past ten before any one could come to the rescue; three long hours of chill and darkness, with no one to speak to, and nowhere to go! Darsie threw the thought aside with the impetuous incredulity of youth.“When’s the next train to town?”“Nine-ten.”That was better! Nine-ten. If she could manage to travel by that train she would arrive at the terminus in abundance of time to prevent any one starting by the next stopping train. It was all easy—perfectly easy, except for the want of a miserable eightpence, but, alas! for the moment eightpence seemed as inaccessible as eighty pounds. Darsie bent a scrutinising glance upon the porter’s downcast face. “He looks about as disagreeable as he can be, but he’s a human creature; he must havesomeheart! Perhaps he’s in trouble, too, and it’s soured his disposition. It would mine! I justhateit when things go wrong. I don’t in the least see why I shouldn’t have a ticket on account! I’ll see what I can do.”She coughed and ventured tentatively—“I missed the last train.”“Did ye!” said the porter coldly. It was not a question; there was no flicker of the interest of a question in his voice, only a dreary indifference which seemed to demand what in the world you were thinking of to trouble him about a stupidity which had happened twenty times a day throughout twenty years of his service on the line. Darsie drew herself up with a feeling of affront. He was a rude, ill-mannered man, who ought to be taught how to speak to ladies in distress. She would ask her father to complain to the railway!What were porters paid for but to make themselves useful to passengers? She drew herself up in haughty fashion, then as suddenly collapsed as her eye rested on her dusty boots and blackened, bloodstained skirt. Ridiculous to act the grand lady with such handicaps as these! She drew a sharp breath, and said in a voice of childlike appeal—“I’m left behind! My friends have gone on. It’s very awkward!”“Are ye?” asked the porter indifferently. He took one hand out of his pocket and pointed woodenly to the right. “Waiting-room first door. Ye can sit there!”Of all the callous, cold-blooded—! Darsie turned with a swing and marched forward into the bleak little cell which had the audacity to call itself a first-class waiting-room, seated herself on a leather-covered bench which seemed just the most inhospitable thing in the way of furniture which the mind of man could conceive, and gave herself up to thought. Never, never so long as she lived would she ever again leave home without some money in her pocket! How in the name of all that was mysterious could she contrive to possess herself of eightpence within the next hour? “Our old woman” would lend it with pleasure, but Darsie shrank from the idea of the darkening country road with the dread of the town-dweller who in imagination sees a tramp lurking behind every bush. No, this first and most obvious suggestion must be put on one side, and even if she could have humbled herself to beg from the porter, Darsie felt an absolute conviction that he would refuse. At the farther side of the station there stretched a small straggling village. Surely somehow in that village—! With a sudden inspiration Darsie leaped to her feet and approached the porter once more. Into her mind had darted the remembrance of the manner in which poor people in books possessed themselves of money in critical moments of their history.“Porter, will you please tell me the way to the nearest pawnshop?”“P–p–-!” Now, indeed, if she had wished to rouse the porter to animation, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams! He spun round, and gaped at her with a stupefaction of surprise. “Pawnshop, did ye say? P–awn! What doyouwant with a pawnshop, a slip of a girl like you?”“That’s my business!” returned Darsie loftily. Since he had been so unsympathetic and rude, she was certainly not going to satisfy his curiosity. Her dear little watch would provide her with money, and somehow—she didn’t understand why—pawnbrokers gave things back after paying for them, in the most amiable and engaging of fashions.“That’s my business! If you would kindly direct me—”“We haven’t got no pawnshop,” said the porter gruffly. He stared at her slowly up and down, down and up, appeared to awake to a suspicious interest, and opined gruffly, “You’d better go ’ome!”“Just what I’m trying to do,” sighed poor Darsie to herself. She turned and went slowly back to her leather seat, and a second disconsolate review of the situation. In time to come this experience would rank as an adventure, and became an oft-told tale. She would chill her listeners with hints of The Tramp, evoke shrieks of laughter at her imitation of the porter. Darsie realised the fact, but for the moment it left her cold. Summer evenings have a trick of turning chill and damp after the sun is set, and the vault-like waiting-room was dreary enough to damp the highest spirits.How was she going to obtain that eightpence for a ticket?The station clock struck nine; the porter took a turn along the platform and peered curiously through the dusty window; a luggage train rattled slowly past, an express whizzed by with thunderous din. The station clock struck the quarter, and still the problem was as far as ever from solution.“Well,” sighed Darsie miserably, “I must just wait. I’m perished with cold already. In two more hours I shall be frozen. Rheumatic fever, I suppose, or galloping decline. It will settle Aunt Maria, that’sonegood thing! but it’s hard all the same, in the flower of my youth! To think of all that a human creature can suffer for the sake of a miserable eightpence!”She got up stiffly and pressed her face against the pane. People were beginning to assemble for the nine-ten. An old man with a satchel of tools, two old women with baskets. “The poor are always generous to the poor. Suppose I ask them? Twopence three farthings each would not kill them!” But when one is not used to begging, it is extraordinary how difficult it is to begin. Darsie tried to think of the words in which she would proffer her request, and blushed in discomfort. No! shecouldnot. Of the two disagreeables it really seemed easier to shiver two hours, and retain one’s pride intact, and then, suddenly, the door of the waiting-room opened with a bang, and Dan’s heavy figure stood on the threshold! The cry of delight, of breathless incredulity with which Darsie leaped to her feet, must have been heard to the end of the platform. She rushed forward, clutched his arm, and hugged it fast in the rapture of relief.“Oh, Dan—you angel—you angel! Have you dropped down straight from the skies?”“Not I! Nothing so easy. Scorched along bad roads on a rickety machine. Would you be kind enough to let go my arm and stop shrieking! You’ll have the whole village here in a moment. Soyou’reall right, I see! Sitting quietly here, after scaring us half out of our wits—”“I thinkI’mthe one to be scared! You were all ready enough to go on, and leave me stranded by myself. I’ve gone through a martyrdom. Dan! tell me, when did you miss me first?”Dan gave an expressive grimace. He looked hot and dusty, and thankful to sit down on the leather bench.“Well, it was too much of a scrimmage to think of anything for the first few miles, but things have a way of printing themselves on one’s brain, and when Ididbegin to think, there seemed something missing! I remembered Vie’s face—the colour of a beetroot, and Clemence limping in the rear. I remembered John and Russell hauling up Hannah by her arms, and the two mothers were safely in their carriage—I’d made sure of that, but—I couldn’t remember a thing aboutyou! Then I asked Vie, and she said you were a long way behind, and I began to guess what had happened. At the first stop I did a rush round, and—there you weren’t! So of course I came back.”“But how—how? There was no train. Did you cycle? Where did you get your machine?”“Borrowed him from the stationmaster, and left my watch in exchange, in case I never went back. Jolly good exchange for him, too. It’s the worst machine I ever rode, and that’s saying a good deal. I told your mother I’d bring you back all right, and persuaded her to go home. What on earth possessed you to be such a muff?”Darsie tossed her head, gratitude giving place to wounded pride.“Muff, indeed! You don’t know what you are talking about, or you wouldn’t be so unkind. I ran like the rest, but I fell—caught my foot on something, and fell on my face. I believe I fainted.” There was an irrepressible note of pride in her voice as she made this last statement, for fainting, being unknown in the healthy Garnett family, was regarded as a most interesting and aristocratic accomplishment. “I do believe I fainted, for for several minutes I didn’t know where I was. And I hurt myself, too; look at my hand!”Dan looked and whistled.“Skinned it properly, haven’t you! Reminds me of the days of my youth. Better sponge it clean with your handkerchief and some of that water. And when youdidremember, the train had gone—.”“Yes—and not another until after ten, and not a halfpenny in my pocket to buy a ticket, and no one but a callous wretch of a porter to consult. Oh, Dan, Iwaswretched—I’ll bless you all my life for coming back like this!”“Rot!” said Dan briskly. “I was the only man. Couldn’t do anything else. I say, you know, it was your doing that I came to this blessed old picnic at all, and youhavelet me in for a day! Eleven to eleven before we’ve done with it—twelve solid hours! I’ve had about as much picnic as I want for the rest of my natural life.”“I’m sorry. I thought it would be so nice. I’m sorry I bothered you, Dan.” Darsie was tired and cold, in a condition of physical depression which made her peculiarly sensitive to a slighting mood. She leaned her head against the ugly wall, and shut her lids over her smarting eyes. Her cheeks were white. Her lips quivered like a wearied child’s, but she made a charming picture all the same, her inherent picturesqueness showing itself even in this moment of collapse.Dan’s gaze grew first sympathetic, then thoughtful, as he looked. In a dim, abstract way he had been conscious that Darsie Garnett was what he would have described as “a pretty kid,” but the charm of her personality had never appealed to him until this moment. Now, as he looked at the dark eyelashes resting on the white cheek, the droop of the curved red lips, the long, slim throat that seemed to-night almost too frail to support the golden head, a feeling of tenderness stirred at his heart. She was such a tiny scrap of a thing, and she had been tired and frightened. What a brute he was to be so gruff and ungracious! “Buck up, Darsie! Only ten minutes more to wait. I’ll get you a cup of coffee when we arrive. Your mother said we were to take a cab, so all the worry’s over and nothing but luxury ahead.”But Darsie, quick to note the soothing effect of her prostration, refused to “buck up,” and looked only more worn and pathetic than before. The opportunity of lording it over Dan was too precious to be neglected, so she blinked at him with languid eyes, and said faintly—“I’ll try, but I’m soverytired! Do you think you could talk to me, Dan, and amuse me a little bit? That would pass the time. Tell me about yourself, and all you are going to do when you go up to Cambridge.”And to his own astonishment Dan found himself responding to her request. His was one of the silent, reserved natures which find it difficult to speak of the subjects which lie nearest to the heart, but even silent people have their moments of expansion, and when once Dan had broken the ice, he found it unexpectedly easy to talk, with Darsie’s big eyes fixed on his in eloquent understanding. She was a capital little listener; never interrupted at the wrong moment, indulged in senseless ejaculations, or fidgety, irritating movement. Nothing about her moved, hardly even the blue eyes, so fixed and absorbed was their gaze, while Dan spoke in low, rapid tones of the course of work which lay ahead, of the ambitions and dreams which were to crown his efforts. He must take first-class honours at Cambridge; nothing less than first-class honours would do—honours so distinguished that he would have no difficulty in obtaining a good post as schoolmaster to tide him over the next few years. “Teaching’s the thing for me—for it leaves four months over for my own work, the real work of my life—scientific study and research! That’s the only thing worth living for from my point of view, and I shall plump for that. I don’t care for money, I don’t want to marry, I’d be content to make enough to keep body and soul together, if I could only help on the cause of humanity. I am not going up to Cambridge for two years. I can do better grinding quietly at home, and the governor doesn’t mind. In fact, he is just as well pleased to think I shall have more time to run when Hannah goes up to Newnham.”Darsie drew her breath sharply.“Oh, Dan! how fortunate you are—how fortunate Hannah is, to be able to do as you like! I would give my ears to go up to Newnham, too, but father says it’s impossible. He can’t afford it with the boys’ education getting more expensive every year. I shall have to stay at home, and turn into a miserable morning governess, teaching wretched little kids to read, and taking them for a walk round the park. Oh, oh! it makes meillto think about it.”Dan laughed shortly.“Excuse me! it makes you well. You look quite like yourself again. I’ll give you a bit of advice if you like: don’t believe that anything’s impossible in this world, because it isn’t! Put the nursery governess idea out of your mind, and fire ahead for Newnham. There’s always the chance of a scholarship, and even if that didn’t come off, who can tell what may happen in three years’ time? The way may clear in a dozen ways; it probablywillclear, if you get ready yourself. There are precious few things one can’t gain by steady slogging ahead.”Darsie looked at him with a kindling glance, her lips set, a spot of red showed on either cheek.“Right!” she said briefly, and at that moment the train steamed into the station and the conference was at an end.

There were no bones broken; she was not seriously hurt; but one has to try for oneself the experiment of running at full tilt, and while so doing to pitch forward at full length on the ground, to realise how extremely disagreeable and disconcerting it can be. Darsie dragged herself slowly to a sitting position, and sat dazed and stupefied, a forlorn, dust-encrusted figure, with hat tilted rakishly on one side, and the palm of her right hand scratched to bleeding where it had dragged along the stony ground. She blinked and stared, and mechanically brushed at her blackened skirts, but it was several moments before remembrance of her position returned to her brain, and with it the realisation of the consequences of delay. She scrambled to her feet, ran forward for a few paces, and stopped short with a sharp groan of pain. She had bruised her knees as well as her hand, and the rapid movement was quite startlingly painful; she fell into a limp, straining her head upwards to peep over the hedgerow at the road beyond. And then, clear and distinct after the interval of silence, came another sharp whistle, another laborious puff, puff, puff.

The train was leaving the station, and she was left behind!

Darsie stopped short, and leaned against the hedge. There was no longer any need to hurry. Either her absence had been discovered or it had not, and a few minutes’ time would settle that question once for all. It soothed her to pretend that there was a chance that she might find some one waiting her arrival on the platform, but at the bottom of her heart she had little hope of such a possibility. As members of a large family whose parents were not rich enough to pay for the modern plethora of nurses and governesses, the Garnetts and Vernons had been brought up to be independent, and to fend for themselves, hence the two mothers would not be so anxious to count the number of their brood, to see that each member was safe and sound, as would have been the parents of smaller, more indulged families.

There would be a rush for tickets, a hurried glance around on emerging from the office, the signal of waving hands, and bobbing heads from half a dozen windows, a quick leap into the nearest seats, and off they would all steam, panting and puffing, congratulating themselves on their escape.

No, Darsie told herself, it was stupid to pretend; certainly, quite certainly she was left behind; nevertheless, when two or three minutes later she reached the top of the railway bridge and peered over the stone wall, it was with quite a big pang of dismay that she beheld the empty platform. Not a soul! Not a single soul except a cross-looking porter sitting astride a barrow, with his hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

Anything less promising in the shape of a forlorn hope it would be difficult to imagine, but the circumstances offered no alternative. Darsie took her courage in both hands and marched boldly towards him.

“Please will you tell me the time of the next train from town?”

The porter rolled his eye sideways, surveyed her up and down, formed an evidently poor opinion, and without a change of position muttered a curt reply—

“Ten-thirty.”

“Ten-thirty!” Dismay at the lateness of the hour struggled with wounded pride at the man’s lack of respect. Half-past ten before any one could come to the rescue; three long hours of chill and darkness, with no one to speak to, and nowhere to go! Darsie threw the thought aside with the impetuous incredulity of youth.

“When’s the next train to town?”

“Nine-ten.”

That was better! Nine-ten. If she could manage to travel by that train she would arrive at the terminus in abundance of time to prevent any one starting by the next stopping train. It was all easy—perfectly easy, except for the want of a miserable eightpence, but, alas! for the moment eightpence seemed as inaccessible as eighty pounds. Darsie bent a scrutinising glance upon the porter’s downcast face. “He looks about as disagreeable as he can be, but he’s a human creature; he must havesomeheart! Perhaps he’s in trouble, too, and it’s soured his disposition. It would mine! I justhateit when things go wrong. I don’t in the least see why I shouldn’t have a ticket on account! I’ll see what I can do.”

She coughed and ventured tentatively—

“I missed the last train.”

“Did ye!” said the porter coldly. It was not a question; there was no flicker of the interest of a question in his voice, only a dreary indifference which seemed to demand what in the world you were thinking of to trouble him about a stupidity which had happened twenty times a day throughout twenty years of his service on the line. Darsie drew herself up with a feeling of affront. He was a rude, ill-mannered man, who ought to be taught how to speak to ladies in distress. She would ask her father to complain to the railway!

What were porters paid for but to make themselves useful to passengers? She drew herself up in haughty fashion, then as suddenly collapsed as her eye rested on her dusty boots and blackened, bloodstained skirt. Ridiculous to act the grand lady with such handicaps as these! She drew a sharp breath, and said in a voice of childlike appeal—

“I’m left behind! My friends have gone on. It’s very awkward!”

“Are ye?” asked the porter indifferently. He took one hand out of his pocket and pointed woodenly to the right. “Waiting-room first door. Ye can sit there!”

Of all the callous, cold-blooded—! Darsie turned with a swing and marched forward into the bleak little cell which had the audacity to call itself a first-class waiting-room, seated herself on a leather-covered bench which seemed just the most inhospitable thing in the way of furniture which the mind of man could conceive, and gave herself up to thought. Never, never so long as she lived would she ever again leave home without some money in her pocket! How in the name of all that was mysterious could she contrive to possess herself of eightpence within the next hour? “Our old woman” would lend it with pleasure, but Darsie shrank from the idea of the darkening country road with the dread of the town-dweller who in imagination sees a tramp lurking behind every bush. No, this first and most obvious suggestion must be put on one side, and even if she could have humbled herself to beg from the porter, Darsie felt an absolute conviction that he would refuse. At the farther side of the station there stretched a small straggling village. Surely somehow in that village—! With a sudden inspiration Darsie leaped to her feet and approached the porter once more. Into her mind had darted the remembrance of the manner in which poor people in books possessed themselves of money in critical moments of their history.

“Porter, will you please tell me the way to the nearest pawnshop?”

“P–p–-!” Now, indeed, if she had wished to rouse the porter to animation, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams! He spun round, and gaped at her with a stupefaction of surprise. “Pawnshop, did ye say? P–awn! What doyouwant with a pawnshop, a slip of a girl like you?”

“That’s my business!” returned Darsie loftily. Since he had been so unsympathetic and rude, she was certainly not going to satisfy his curiosity. Her dear little watch would provide her with money, and somehow—she didn’t understand why—pawnbrokers gave things back after paying for them, in the most amiable and engaging of fashions.

“That’s my business! If you would kindly direct me—”

“We haven’t got no pawnshop,” said the porter gruffly. He stared at her slowly up and down, down and up, appeared to awake to a suspicious interest, and opined gruffly, “You’d better go ’ome!”

“Just what I’m trying to do,” sighed poor Darsie to herself. She turned and went slowly back to her leather seat, and a second disconsolate review of the situation. In time to come this experience would rank as an adventure, and became an oft-told tale. She would chill her listeners with hints of The Tramp, evoke shrieks of laughter at her imitation of the porter. Darsie realised the fact, but for the moment it left her cold. Summer evenings have a trick of turning chill and damp after the sun is set, and the vault-like waiting-room was dreary enough to damp the highest spirits.How was she going to obtain that eightpence for a ticket?

The station clock struck nine; the porter took a turn along the platform and peered curiously through the dusty window; a luggage train rattled slowly past, an express whizzed by with thunderous din. The station clock struck the quarter, and still the problem was as far as ever from solution.

“Well,” sighed Darsie miserably, “I must just wait. I’m perished with cold already. In two more hours I shall be frozen. Rheumatic fever, I suppose, or galloping decline. It will settle Aunt Maria, that’sonegood thing! but it’s hard all the same, in the flower of my youth! To think of all that a human creature can suffer for the sake of a miserable eightpence!”

She got up stiffly and pressed her face against the pane. People were beginning to assemble for the nine-ten. An old man with a satchel of tools, two old women with baskets. “The poor are always generous to the poor. Suppose I ask them? Twopence three farthings each would not kill them!” But when one is not used to begging, it is extraordinary how difficult it is to begin. Darsie tried to think of the words in which she would proffer her request, and blushed in discomfort. No! shecouldnot. Of the two disagreeables it really seemed easier to shiver two hours, and retain one’s pride intact, and then, suddenly, the door of the waiting-room opened with a bang, and Dan’s heavy figure stood on the threshold! The cry of delight, of breathless incredulity with which Darsie leaped to her feet, must have been heard to the end of the platform. She rushed forward, clutched his arm, and hugged it fast in the rapture of relief.

“Oh, Dan—you angel—you angel! Have you dropped down straight from the skies?”

“Not I! Nothing so easy. Scorched along bad roads on a rickety machine. Would you be kind enough to let go my arm and stop shrieking! You’ll have the whole village here in a moment. Soyou’reall right, I see! Sitting quietly here, after scaring us half out of our wits—”

“I thinkI’mthe one to be scared! You were all ready enough to go on, and leave me stranded by myself. I’ve gone through a martyrdom. Dan! tell me, when did you miss me first?”

Dan gave an expressive grimace. He looked hot and dusty, and thankful to sit down on the leather bench.

“Well, it was too much of a scrimmage to think of anything for the first few miles, but things have a way of printing themselves on one’s brain, and when Ididbegin to think, there seemed something missing! I remembered Vie’s face—the colour of a beetroot, and Clemence limping in the rear. I remembered John and Russell hauling up Hannah by her arms, and the two mothers were safely in their carriage—I’d made sure of that, but—I couldn’t remember a thing aboutyou! Then I asked Vie, and she said you were a long way behind, and I began to guess what had happened. At the first stop I did a rush round, and—there you weren’t! So of course I came back.”

“But how—how? There was no train. Did you cycle? Where did you get your machine?”

“Borrowed him from the stationmaster, and left my watch in exchange, in case I never went back. Jolly good exchange for him, too. It’s the worst machine I ever rode, and that’s saying a good deal. I told your mother I’d bring you back all right, and persuaded her to go home. What on earth possessed you to be such a muff?”

Darsie tossed her head, gratitude giving place to wounded pride.

“Muff, indeed! You don’t know what you are talking about, or you wouldn’t be so unkind. I ran like the rest, but I fell—caught my foot on something, and fell on my face. I believe I fainted.” There was an irrepressible note of pride in her voice as she made this last statement, for fainting, being unknown in the healthy Garnett family, was regarded as a most interesting and aristocratic accomplishment. “I do believe I fainted, for for several minutes I didn’t know where I was. And I hurt myself, too; look at my hand!”

Dan looked and whistled.

“Skinned it properly, haven’t you! Reminds me of the days of my youth. Better sponge it clean with your handkerchief and some of that water. And when youdidremember, the train had gone—.”

“Yes—and not another until after ten, and not a halfpenny in my pocket to buy a ticket, and no one but a callous wretch of a porter to consult. Oh, Dan, Iwaswretched—I’ll bless you all my life for coming back like this!”

“Rot!” said Dan briskly. “I was the only man. Couldn’t do anything else. I say, you know, it was your doing that I came to this blessed old picnic at all, and youhavelet me in for a day! Eleven to eleven before we’ve done with it—twelve solid hours! I’ve had about as much picnic as I want for the rest of my natural life.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it would be so nice. I’m sorry I bothered you, Dan.” Darsie was tired and cold, in a condition of physical depression which made her peculiarly sensitive to a slighting mood. She leaned her head against the ugly wall, and shut her lids over her smarting eyes. Her cheeks were white. Her lips quivered like a wearied child’s, but she made a charming picture all the same, her inherent picturesqueness showing itself even in this moment of collapse.

Dan’s gaze grew first sympathetic, then thoughtful, as he looked. In a dim, abstract way he had been conscious that Darsie Garnett was what he would have described as “a pretty kid,” but the charm of her personality had never appealed to him until this moment. Now, as he looked at the dark eyelashes resting on the white cheek, the droop of the curved red lips, the long, slim throat that seemed to-night almost too frail to support the golden head, a feeling of tenderness stirred at his heart. She was such a tiny scrap of a thing, and she had been tired and frightened. What a brute he was to be so gruff and ungracious! “Buck up, Darsie! Only ten minutes more to wait. I’ll get you a cup of coffee when we arrive. Your mother said we were to take a cab, so all the worry’s over and nothing but luxury ahead.”

But Darsie, quick to note the soothing effect of her prostration, refused to “buck up,” and looked only more worn and pathetic than before. The opportunity of lording it over Dan was too precious to be neglected, so she blinked at him with languid eyes, and said faintly—

“I’ll try, but I’m soverytired! Do you think you could talk to me, Dan, and amuse me a little bit? That would pass the time. Tell me about yourself, and all you are going to do when you go up to Cambridge.”

And to his own astonishment Dan found himself responding to her request. His was one of the silent, reserved natures which find it difficult to speak of the subjects which lie nearest to the heart, but even silent people have their moments of expansion, and when once Dan had broken the ice, he found it unexpectedly easy to talk, with Darsie’s big eyes fixed on his in eloquent understanding. She was a capital little listener; never interrupted at the wrong moment, indulged in senseless ejaculations, or fidgety, irritating movement. Nothing about her moved, hardly even the blue eyes, so fixed and absorbed was their gaze, while Dan spoke in low, rapid tones of the course of work which lay ahead, of the ambitions and dreams which were to crown his efforts. He must take first-class honours at Cambridge; nothing less than first-class honours would do—honours so distinguished that he would have no difficulty in obtaining a good post as schoolmaster to tide him over the next few years. “Teaching’s the thing for me—for it leaves four months over for my own work, the real work of my life—scientific study and research! That’s the only thing worth living for from my point of view, and I shall plump for that. I don’t care for money, I don’t want to marry, I’d be content to make enough to keep body and soul together, if I could only help on the cause of humanity. I am not going up to Cambridge for two years. I can do better grinding quietly at home, and the governor doesn’t mind. In fact, he is just as well pleased to think I shall have more time to run when Hannah goes up to Newnham.”

Darsie drew her breath sharply.

“Oh, Dan! how fortunate you are—how fortunate Hannah is, to be able to do as you like! I would give my ears to go up to Newnham, too, but father says it’s impossible. He can’t afford it with the boys’ education getting more expensive every year. I shall have to stay at home, and turn into a miserable morning governess, teaching wretched little kids to read, and taking them for a walk round the park. Oh, oh! it makes meillto think about it.”

Dan laughed shortly.

“Excuse me! it makes you well. You look quite like yourself again. I’ll give you a bit of advice if you like: don’t believe that anything’s impossible in this world, because it isn’t! Put the nursery governess idea out of your mind, and fire ahead for Newnham. There’s always the chance of a scholarship, and even if that didn’t come off, who can tell what may happen in three years’ time? The way may clear in a dozen ways; it probablywillclear, if you get ready yourself. There are precious few things one can’t gain by steady slogging ahead.”

Darsie looked at him with a kindling glance, her lips set, a spot of red showed on either cheek.

“Right!” she said briefly, and at that moment the train steamed into the station and the conference was at an end.

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