sed to be
bound up with 'The Dairyman's Daughter' and 'The Shepherd of Salisbury
Plain.' It was the first thing that interested me in New England."

"Well," said Philip, "it isn't much. Just a tract. But it was written
by Parson Halleck, a great minister and a sort of Pope in this region for
fifty years. It is, so far as I know, the only thing of his that
remains."

This tractarian movement was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Mavick.

"Good-morning, Mr. Burnett. I've been down to see Jenkins about his
picnic wagon. Carries six, besides the driver and my man, and the
hampers. So, you see, Miss Alice will have to go. We couldn't go
rattling along half empty. I'll go up and see her this afternoon.
So, that's settled. Now about the time and place. You are the director.
Let's sit down and plan it out. It looks like good weather for a week."

"Miss McDonald says she wants to see the Mountain Miller," said Philip,
with a smile.

"What's that? A monument like your Pulpit Rock?"

"No, a tract about a miller."

"Ah, something religious. I never heard of it. Well, perhaps we had
better begin with something secular, and work round to that."

So an excursion was arranged for the next day. And as Philip walked
home, thinking how brilliant Evelyn had been in their little talk,
he began to dramatize the excursion.

All excursions are much alike, exhilarating in the outset, rarely up to
expectation in the object, wearisome in the return; but, nevertheless,
delightful in the memory, especially if attended with some hardship or
slight disaster. To be free, in the open air, and for a day
unconventional and irresponsible, is the sufficient justification of a
country picnic; but its common attraction is in the opportunity for
bringing young persons of the opposite sex into natural and unrestrained
relations. To Philip it was the first time in his life that a picnic had
ever seemed a defensible means of getting rid of a day.

The two persons to whom this excursion was most novel and exciting were
Evelyn and the elder maiden, Alice, who sat together and speedily
developed a sympathy with each other in the enjoyment of the country, and
in a similar poetic temperament, very shy on the part of Alice and very
frank on the part of Evelyn. The whole wild scene along the river was
quite as novel to Alice as to the city girl, because, although she was
familiar with every mile of it and had driven through it a hundred times,
she had neve