An Exciting Prospect.
When Mildred had been staying for a fortnight at the Deanery, a letter arrived one morning which filled Bertha and Lois with delight, inasmuch as it contained an invitation to what they exultantly described as “the picnic of the year.”
The girls had already attended several tennis parties, and had organised small excursions on their own account, driving off in the pony carriage to spend an afternoon in the country in charge of the children’s governess, but this picnic was to be on a very different scale. Mrs Newland, it appeared, gave one every summer, and understood how to do things in proper style. Her guests were to assemble at the station at a certain hour, as the first stage of the journey was by rail, but a couple of coaches were to be in readiness to convey them the remainder of the way.
Their destination was a lovely little village, nestled among the hills, where a river wound in and out, and there were woods, and dells, and waterfalls, and caverns; everything in fact that the most exacting mind could desire for a well-regulated picnic.
“And such delightful people—quite grown up! You must not imagine that it is a children’s picnic,” explained Bertha anxiously. “We are always the youngest there. We would not be allowed to go at all except that the Newlands are very old friends, and that Mother chaperones us herself. Mrs Newland takes two or three of the servants with her, and they carry hampers, and clear away the things while we amuse ourselves. We sit on the rocks in the middle of the river, and come home late at night, singing part songs on the top of the coach, with mandolin and guitar accompaniments. Oh, it’s lovely! You will enjoy yourself, Mildred!”
There was no question about that, for Mildred had the faculty of enjoying every little pleasure which came in her way, and that with a whole-heartedness and forgetfulness of drawbacks which would have been shared by few girls of her age.
Bertha and Lois had a private consultation the first time they found themselves alone after the arrival of the invitation.
“I am so glad Mil is to be with us for Mrs Newland’s picnic,” said the former. “I want her to see all the people, and I want them to see her. She will chatter away and not be in the least shy, and they will be charmed with her, for she does say such funny things! Even Father has to laugh sometimes. Er—Lois! I wonder what she is going to wear.”
“So do I!” said Lois calmly. “I’ve been wondering about that ever since the invitation came, and yet I don’t see why we should, for she has nothing with her but the old school dresses, so how can there be any choice? She is certainly very shabby. It must be horrid to have no pretty clothes. I suppose they are very poor.”
“Oh, yes, I know they are! Mildred makes no secret of it. Poor dear! it is hard for her, when she is so well-connected, too,” returned the dean’s eldest daughter, in her funny, consequential, little voice. “Her grandmother was the daughter of a very well-known man—I forget who he was, but she told me one day, and I know it was someone important. She married without her parents’ consent, and they never acknowledged her afterwards. When Mildred’s mother was grown up, one of the aunts wished to adopt her as a companion, but Mrs Moore refused to go, because she would have had to promise to have nothing more to do with her parents. The old lady was dreadfully offended, and they have never heard of her since that day.”