before he spoke again. "What time did you say that
blessed old picnic is to start?"

"Wednesday. Ten o'clock," said Darsie, and, like a true daughter of
Eve, spoke not one more word, but shut the door and left him to his
thoughts.

"Dan's coming! You're not to say a word till the time, but he _is_!"
she announced to her sisters that evening; but when they questioned and
cross-questioned concerning the means whereby the miracle had been
wrought, she steadfastly refused to satisfy their curiosity. That was
not their concern. An inherent loyalty to Dan forbade that she should
make public the wiles by which he had been beguiled.

CHAPTER FIVE.

LEFT BEHIND!

Wednesday dawned bright and fair; it had not seemed possible that it
could be wet, and the party of twelve, with their baskets and hampers,
drove economically and gaily to the ferry in a three-horse omnibus, so
ostentatiously treating it as their own vehicle that the few alien
passengers sat abashed, and plainly felt themselves _de trop_. Darsie's
prophecy had been fulfilled, for Dan appeared at the starting-point,
somewhat grim and sulky of demeanour, but obviously on picnic bent. He
was the only member of the party whose hands were free of basket or
bundle, and when the omnibus trundled into sight he walked forward to
meet it and swung himself up to a place on top as though anxious to
convince beholders that he had no connection with the noisy crowd at the
corner, whereupon the two mothers smiled at each other in amused
reminiscent fashion.

The girls were dressed in white; the boys wore flannel trousers with
school blazers and caps. Clemence had put on a veil to protect her
complexion; plain Hannah's sailor hat left yards of forehead bleakly
exposed. Darsie wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder in
jaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on such
occasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; the
programme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract any attention
among her companions.

The omnibus conveyed the party to the ferry, from whence an hourly boat
puffed several miles up the river to where the village of Earley stood
on the opposite bank. It was an ancient and by no means luxurious
barque, impregnated from bow to stern with a hot, oily, funnelly smell
from which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley were
almost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were