eep him at Willow Farm for the rest
of the day, and Elsie spent the long afternoon hours with the boy.

Seeing that Francis Ryan was prowling about in the garden, she carried
Jamie off to her large, cool room upstairs, and told him stories to his
heart's content. Then, too, she had discovered a pile of nursery books
in a corner of the house, and had brought them up here for his benefit.
Their hearts grew closer and closer together; they enjoyed each other's
love, and exchanged caresses like a couple of children. The child had a
wonderfully freshening influence on Elsie's life, and when she brought
him down to afternoon tea, the two old ladies rejoiced to see her
looking so young and bright.

"Francis is gone to the Danforths'," said Mrs. Lennard, with a merry
twinkle in her eyes.

The afternoon was deepening into evening when Arnold Wayne came up the
garden path to the door. He found Elsie under the porch, with a mass of
jessamine hanging over her head.

"There is to be a picnic next Thursday," he said; "I am dragged into it.
The gathering-place will be in a meadow, under some trees near the
river. I've got a little boat, and a man to row people to and from the
island."

"I shall like that," remarked Jamie, who was listening. "Mammy will be
sure to let me go!"

Elsie did not feel strongly inclined to go to the picnic. She had taken
the quiet of the country into her heart, and wanted to escape from
society. But Mrs. Lennard disapproved of this growing taste for
solitude.

"You must mingle with the others, my dear, whether you like them or
not," she said. "I shall come upstairs and turn over your dresses. You
have a cool, brown holland-looking thing, trimmed with bands of scarlet
silk and black lace. I think you shall wear that."

CHAPTER XVII

_THE PICNIC_

"The chatterers chatter, here and there,
They chatter of they know not what."
--OWEN MEREDITH.

"The cool, brown holland-looking thing" was donned, in obedience to Mrs.
Lennard's decree. Mrs. Verdon had written to her milliner to send her
down something new for the occasion in the shape of headgear. But Elsie
had spent an hour in her room, on the day before the picnic, and had
retrimmed a black chip hat with black lace and soft knots of scarlet
ribbon.

"I am not a rich woman," she said to the rector's wife; "and if I were,
I should still like to use the gifts that have been given me. I think we
should not le