land's
curiosity, for Miss Garland, with her own irritating half-suggestions,
had only to be a subject of guarded allusion in others to become
intolerably interesting. He learned from Roderick that she was the
daughter of a country minister, a far-away cousin of his mother,
settled in another part of the State; that she was one of a half-a-dozen
daughters, that the family was very poor, and that she had come a couple
of months before to pay his mother a long visit. "It is to be a very
long one now," he said, "for it is settled that she is to remain while I
am away."

The fermentation of contentment in Roderick's soul reached its climax a
few days before the young men were to make their farewells. He had been
sitting with his friends on Cecilia's veranda, but for half an hour past
he had said nothing. Lounging back against a vine-wreathed column and
gazing idly at the stars, he kept caroling softly to himself with that
indifference to ceremony for which he always found allowance, and which
in him had a sort of pleading grace. At last, springing up: "I want to
strike out, hard!" he exclaimed. "I want to do something violent, to let
off steam!"

"I 'll tell you what to do, this lovely weather," said Cecilia. "Give a
picnic. It can be as violent as you please, and it will have the merit
of leading off our emotion into a safe channel, as well as yours."

Roderick laughed uproariously at Cecilia's very practical remedy for his
sentimental need, but a couple of days later, nevertheless, the picnic
was given. It was to be a family party, but Roderick, in his magnanimous
geniality, insisted on inviting Mr. Striker, a decision which Rowland
mentally applauded. "And we 'll have Mrs. Striker, too," he said, "if
she 'll come, to keep my mother in countenance; and at any rate we
'll have Miss Striker--the divine Petronilla!" The young lady thus
denominated formed, with Mrs. Hudson, Miss Garland, and Cecilia, the
feminine half of the company. Mr. Striker presented himself, sacrificing
a morning's work, with a magnanimity greater even than Roderick's, and
foreign support was further secured in the person of Mr. Whitefoot, the
young Orthodox minister. Roderick had chosen the feasting-place; he
knew it well and had passed many a summer afternoon there, lying at his
length on the grass and gazing at the blue undulations of the horizon.
It was a meadow on the edge of a wood, with mossy rocks protruding
through the grass and a little lak