e in."

"How delightful it will be!" exclaimed Anna. "How I wish it was going
to be to-morrow, I'm so afraid something will prevent it."

"Bother this list!" put in Clara's voice, from the table where she sat
writing; "you might help me, Isabel."

"What do you want?" asked her sister.

"Well--Mr Goodwin, for instance--am I to put him down?"

Anna gave a little start, and gazed earnestly out of the window at which
she stood, as Isabel went up to the table and looked over Clara's
shoulder. Then they did not know! Aunt Sarah had not told them. How
strange it seemed!

"W-well, I don't know," said Isabel, reflectively. "We never have asked
him to anything; but a picnic's different. He's a very nice old man,
isn't he?"

"He's an old dear," replied her sister, heartily, "but he's an organist.
We shouldn't ask the organist of the church here."

"Mr Goodwin's different, somehow," said Isabel; "he's so clever, and
then he's a great friend of the Hunts, you know, and, of course, we
shall ask them."

"Well, what am I to do?" repeated Clara.

"Put him down, and put a query against him," decided Isabel, "and when
mother sees the list, she can alter it if she likes."

Anna expected every moment during this discussion that her opinion would
be asked. She stood quite still, her back turned to her companions, a
bright flush on her cheek, her heart beating fast. When all chance of
being appealed to was over, and the girls had gone on to other names,
she drew a deep breath, as if she had escaped a danger.

"I must go now," she said, turning towards them, "Aunt Sarah wants me
early to-day;" and in a few moments she was out of the house and on the
way home.

It was not until she was half-way down the long hill which led from
Pynes to Waverley, that she began to realise what difficulties she had
prepared for herself by her silence. If Mr Goodwin were asked, and if
he came to the picnic, the relationship between them must be known.
That would not matter so much, but it would matter that she had seemed
to be ashamed of it. Why had she not told them long ago? Why had she
not spoken just now, at the first mention of his name? What a foolish,
foolish girl she had been! What should she do now? Turning it over in
her mind, she came to the conclusion that she must make some excuse to
her Aunt, and stay away from the picnic. She could not face what might
happen there. The Palmers' surprise, Delia's scorn. Why did you n