A PIC-NIC IN OLDEN TIME.
BY QUEVEDO.
[SEE ENGRAVING.]
Joy is as old as the universe, yet as young as a June rose: and a pic-nic has of all places been its delight, since the little quiet family fêtes champêtres of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. So it is of no especial consequence in what reign of what kingdom our clever artist has laid his scene—and sooth to say, from the diversified and pleasantly incongruous costume and accessories of the picture, it might puzzle an uninitiated to tell. But we, who are in the secrets of Maga, and to whom the very brain-workings of her poets and painters are as palpable as the crystal curdling of the lake beneath the filmy breath of the Frost King, of course know all about it, and will whisper in your ear the key to the pretty harmonies of wood and sky and happy faces which he has spread out in a sort of visible cavatina, or dear little love-song, beneath your eye.
It was a gay time at Sweetbriar Lodge—for the fair Alice Hawthorn had just been married to the Squire of Deerdale, and the happy pair (new-married people were even in those times happy, although they were not so set down in the newspapers,) had determined to spend the honeymoon quietly at home, like sensible people, instead of posting off to Bath or Brighton; or mewing themselves up in some outlandish corner of the country, where they could see and hear nothing but themselves, until they were ready to commence the married life by being cloyed with each other's society. The season was mid-summer, and the weather so balmy and beautiful that after wandering about in the woods and fields all day, and watching the moon creep stealthily up the sky to view herself in the fountain, one felt a longing to make his bed on the fresh turf under the katydid's bower, and sleep there. Of course I don't mean the young and happy bridegroom. He never dreamed of being absent from his Alice; and he even felt quite jealous of her little sister Emma, who used sometimes to come and put her laughing, roguish face and curly head between the lovers, as they were sitting on the sofa or reclining on the green turf by the little fountain.
But Alice had another sister, older than herself, and who had already refused several excellent offers of marriage—declaring that she intended to live and die single, unless she should fall in love with some wandering minstrel or prince in disguise, like Lalla Rookh. Her name was Hortensia; but on account of her proud indifference to the attentions and compliments which were every where offered to her wonderful beauty, she was usually called Haughty Hawthorn—a name which seemed to please her better than all the flatteries of which she was the object. She was already twenty-two, and ripening into the full magnificence of glorious womanhood—her heart yet untouched by the electric dart of love, and her fancy free as the birds of air.
Now it was quite natural that the gentle Alice, whom love had made so happy, should willingly enter into a conspiracy with her husband and a parcel of the young people of the neighborhood against the peace and comfort of her haughty sister—deeming of course—as I myself am also of opinion—that a young lady out of love ought to be supremely miserable, whatever she herself may think about it.