“I don’t choose to be patronized.”
“I think this was Mr. Ogden’s own planning. You will like him I am sure. Oh please go,” I entreated.
In the meanwhile Winthrop had been admiring the baby and bantering some one else to fill up the carriage. Oddly enough mamma consented to take Edith. When Louis heard that he made no further objection.
The result of this was that Winthrop came back and staid to dinner. We were all going to the Fairlie’s to tea and croquet. And Fan absolutely sent him home or I believe he would have staid until we started.
Mamma liked him. Stuart pronounced him jolly, but Louis withheld his verdict. I must confess that I admired him ever so much. You could get on with him so nicely.
I was very glad that Fan did not monopolize him during the evening. Dick appeared quite elated with her notice of him. It was moonlight and we walked home together, but somehow then Dick fell to my share.
The next week we hardly had a moment to breathe. What with our engagements and getting everything in train for the picnic we were as busy as bees. The aristocratic part seldom joined us, but papa always obeyed the scriptural injunction. The lame, and the halt, and the blind were hunted up, the whimsical old people who would not go without a special invitation, the poor who were sure they had nothing to wear, and the children who were always ready, but needed getting in order.
Mamma remained behind with baby and Louis. I was to act for her as well as I could. The stronger portion of the community were to meet on the church green and march in regular order. Fan had beguiled Dick Fairlie into taking Jennie Ryder and her mother, who was quite disabled from a stroke of paralysis two years before. All the others were to go in wagons or stages or wheel-barrows, she said.
Winthrop came over and helped us manage the children. At nine we took up our line of march under the shady trees. There was a shorter way in the sun, but we had time enough. This road wound round the hilly district, crossed the river once, and then seemed to lose itself in the woods. At least there was the hill and the trees on one side. Here a craggy declivity stood out bold and brown amid the waving green, ferns and wild flowers grew in the clefts, or shrubs with precarious footing. A spur of the creek ran along the height, and presently began to find its way down through a sort of sloping river, purling over rocks and stones and fallen trees, and in two places pouring down a precipitous pathway, making very pretty falls, the larger one at least ten feet high. Then it ran off and joined the river.
There was one lovely nook, though art had assisted nature here. A clearing had been made years ago, and now the turf of clover and grass was like velvet.