"Oh, I know what they are," said Maud Hallett. "They are lovely places hidden in behind Bishop Berkeley's Rock. I went there once with Aunt Edith. She knows all the nooks and corners of Newport better than anybody else."
"Mamma, you must take us there some day," said Georgie.
"Oh, do, and let me go with you," pleaded Maud. "I should like so much to see them again."
"Won't you take me too?" said Belle Jeffrys.
"We should all like to go," remarked Julia, slyly. "Oh, Mrs. Gray, dear, I have such a lovely idea! Give us a picnic yourself, one of the nice old-fashioned sort that you used to have when you were young, in the Paradise Valley; won't you, dear Mrs. Gray? Oh, do!"
"You needn't coax so hard, Julia; I'm very easy to persuade when I like to do a thing," said Mrs. Gray, with a laugh. "I'll give you a picnic with pleasure; only I must make one stipulation, that it shall be exclusively a girl-party. I don't think the young men of the present day would enjoy the kind of thing I mean, or know what to make of it."
"Girls!" cried Julia, "just listen to what this dear angel says! She's going to take us to Paradise Valley, all by ourselves, with no men to bother and distract our attention.—Men are out of place in Paradise anyway; just think how Adam behaved! (this in a parenthesis).—It is to be a real old-fashioned "goloptious" picnic. Now, who would like to go besides myself?"
"I, I, I," cried the girls, with gratifying unanimity.
"Now, what day shall it be?" continued Julia. "Let's make Mrs. Gray settle the time at once, and then she can't back out."
"I don't want to back out," said Mrs. Gray. "I enjoy the idea as much as you do."