CHAPTER XXXV
The Picnic.
A few days later came the great picnic up the mountain. The Blakes gave the picnic, and the guests numbered about seventy, half of them proceeding to the climbing-place upon bicycles and the other half driving. The weather was not very promising from the first, but it was too large an undertaking to put off, and they accordingly started out.
Paddy went in the Mastermans’ carriage with the two aunts. As they drove along she wished, a little unaccountably, that Ted Masterman was one of the party. “After all,” she mused, “he was better than no one, and it was so very tame without Jack. Really, there was no one in the least adventuresome or enterprising.”
Then she fell to wondering what line Lawrence would take, and whether, perhaps, to-day, he would rise to a quarrel. Once more she hoped he would.
It was, in consequence, more irritating than ever that Lawrence not only proved quite amenable, but appeared in a wholly new light that separated them effectually the whole day. For the first time in any one’s recollection, he assumed, with his most ingratiating charm, the rôle of host. He was absolutely indefatigable in attending to the wants of his guests, most particularly all the elderly ladies and quiet ones. The rowdy faction, with Paddy at their head, he ignored just as far as was compatible with his new rôle. Paddy herself he never once addressed. She might, indeed, not have been there.
About five o’clock a slight mistiness frightened most of the older folks home out of the damp, but the younger ones, headed by Paddy, who was beginning to get desperate, started off on a climbing expedition. After a short time most of them gave in and came back again, but a few went on, Paddy still leading. Then these few gave in also, owing to the increasing dampness, and shouted to Paddy to come back.
“Don’t wait—I’ll soon catch you up,” she called, and then she climbed on a little higher to see if she could find the wonderful earthwork entrenchments she and Jack had once thrown up for a miniature sham fight.
The others leaned against rocks and waited, chatting gayly to pass the time. After a little while, as she did not come, they concluded she had returned to the starting-place by another path, and trooped back without feeling the least concern. Lawrence and Doreen were helping people into their carriages and saying good-by to various guests, when the former heard some one ask casually:
“Isn’t Paddy Adair here?”