, oh, my reader! It must be added, however, that she was an
orphan; that she lived entirely with her aunt, Miss Baker; that her
father had been in early life a sort of partner with Mr. George
Bertram; that Mr. George Bertram was her guardian, though he had
hitherto taken but little trouble in looking after her, whatever
trouble he may have taken in looking after her money; and that she
was possessed of a moderate fortune, say about four thousand pounds.

A picnic undertaken from Jerusalem must in some respects be unlike
any picnic elsewhere. Ladies cannot be carried to it in carriages,
because at Jerusalem there are no carriages; nor can the provisions
be conveyed even in carts, for at Jerusalem there are no carts. The
stock of comestibles was therefore packed in hampers on a camel's
back, and sent off to the valley by one route, whereas Miss Todd and
her friends went on horseback and on donkey-back by another and a
longer road.

It may as well be mentioned that Miss Todd was a little ashamed of
the magnitude to which her undertaking had attained. Her original
plan had merely been this:--that she and a few others should ride
through the valleys round the city, and send a basket of sandwiches
to meet them at some hungry point on the road. Now there was a
_cortege_ of eleven persons, exclusive of the groom-boys, a boiled
ham, sundry chickens, hard-boiled eggs, and champagne. Miss Todd
was somewhat ashamed of this. Here, in England, one would hardly
inaugurate a picnic to Kensal Green, or the Highgate Cemetery, nor
select the tombs of our departed great ones as a shelter under which
to draw one's corks. But Miss Todd boasted of high spirits: when this
little difficulty had been first suggested to her by Mr. M'Gabbery,
she had scoffed at it, and had enlarged her circle in a spirit of
mild bravado. Then chance had done more for her; and now she was
doomed to preside over a large party of revellers immediately over
the ashes of James the Just.

None but Englishmen or Englishwomen do such things as this. To other
people is wanting sufficient pluck for such enterprises; is wanting
also a certain mixture of fun, honest independence, and bad taste.
Let us go into some church on the Continent--in Italy, we will
say--where the walls of the churches still boast of the great
works of the great masters.--Look at that man standing on the very
altar-step while the priest is saying his mass; look at his gray
shooting-coat, his thick