"Don't forget the picnic," was Olive's last word, as she set Jane down at her own door. "I shall begin to get an outing hat ready now."
"If I should forget, Peter would remind me. It's his plan," Jane reassured her--a fact which of itself pleased Olive, for she was confident that it meant his regard for her entertainment.
If she had known, however, the whole plan was a plot of Peter's for Murray's diversion.
"The fellow 's worrying about something," Peter had said. "He's pitching into the exercises I showed him, but his mind 's counting against him. I know what he wants to build himself up for. He told me that if he had to be the family's sole representative in the matter of sons for the next three years, he wanted to put up a better showing, and I 'm decidedly glad he takes it that way. I 'd hate myself to be five feet ten and weigh only one hundred and thirty. Let 's take him--and the girls if you like--out for a day on Grandfather Bell's farm. What do you say? Do you suppose we could make the thing acceptable to Miss Worthington Square?" After due consideration of the matter, and some consultation with her mother, Jane had enthusiastically agreed. Now, upon returning from the drive, she was able to tell Peter that Olive had accepted the invitation with alacrity.
"What--fishing and all?" he laughed. "Really, I think better of her ladyship than ever for coming down to earth like that. The question is now, how to get them there without resorting to hay-wagons--a form of conveyance I judge Miss Olive would n't deign to accept."
"Imagine one rolling up to the porte-cochère on the Worthington Square front!" and Jane broke into such a merry laugh that everybody joined in--for Jane had told Peter her news at the dinner-table.
"Let Miss Olive and Murray and Shirley drive in their own trap, and have Pete bring out grandfather's new surrey for us. I 'm sure it's as trim a looking vehicle as any, if his horses don't have quite the smartest harness going," suggested Ross McAndrew. "The horses themselves are crack-a-jacks."
"That will have to do, I think," Jane agreed, "though it seems too bad to ask our guests to take themselves."
"No matter in what order we go, you 'll find we 'll come home democratically mixed up," prophesied Ross. "I defy Miss Worthington Square to withstand the leveling influences of a day on Grandfather Bell's farm. I 've no doubt Peter will drive the trap home, with Rufe hanging on the back seat, and Murray will learn what it means to coax a pair of shy farm horses past the electric cars. As for me, I may come home as jockey on young Major's back, the city youth having proved not up to the situation."
With such merry comments the preparation for the picnic was made. And if the Bells had known it, their guests looked forward to the affair with quite as pleasant anticipations as themselves. When the day came--a sultry August morning, with signs of thunder-showers in the west--Olive and Murray and Shirley found themselves as willing to risk a possible wetting as the Bells themselves, who never minded such small things as thunder-showers in the least.