, is it?"

"I think so. We make a day of it; and everybody carries provisions; and
we build a fire, and it is very pleasant."

"I'll go," said Mr. Knowlton. "I have heard something about it at home.
They wanted me to drive them, but I wanted to know what I was engaging
myself to. Well, I'll be there, and I'll take care our waggon carries
its stock of supplies too. Thursday, is it?"

"I believe so."

"What time shall you go?"

"About eight o'clock--or half-past."

"_Eight!_" said the young officer. "I shall have to revive Academy
habits. I am grown lazy."

"The days are so warm, you know," Diana explained; "and we have to come
home early. We always have dinner between twelve and one."

"I see!" said the young man. "I see the necessity, and feel the
difficulty. Well, I'll be there."

He grasped her hand again; they had shaken hands before he left the
house, Diana remembered; and this time he held her fingers in a light
clasp for some seconds after it was time to let them go. Then he turned
and sprang upon his horse and went off at a gallop. Diana stood still
at the gate where he had left her, looking down the road and listening
to the diminishing sound of his horse's hoofs. The moonlight streamed
tenderly down upon her and the elm trees; it filled the empty space
where Knowlton's figure had been; it flickered where the elm branches
stirred lightly and cast broken shadows upon the ground; it poured its
floods of effulgence over the meadows and distant hills, in still,
moveless peace and power of everlasting calm. It was one of the minutes
of Diana's life that she never forgot afterwards; a point where her
life had stood still--still as the moonlight, and almost as sweet in
its broad restfulness. She lingered at the gate, and came slowly back
again into the house.

"What are you going to take to Bear Hill, mother?" inquired Diana the
next day.

"I don't know! I declare, I'm 'most tired of picnics; they cost more
than they come to. If we could tackle up, now, and go off by ourselves,
early some morning, and get what we want--there'd be some fun in that."

"It's a very lonely place, mother."

"That's what I say. I'm tired o' livin' for ever in a crowd."

"But you said you'd go?"

"Well, I'm goin'!"

"Then we must take something."

"Well; I'm goin' to. I calculated to take something."

"What?"

"Somethin' 'nother nobody else'll take--if I could contrive what that'd
be."

"Well, mother, I can tell yo