“That,” murmured Mrs. Burton on Tuesday morning, as she prepared to descend to the breakfast table, “promises a pleasant day.” Then, in a louder tone, she said to her husband: “Harry, just listen to those dear children singing! Aren’t their voices sweet?”

“’Sing before breakfast, cry before dark,’” quoted Mr. Burton, quoting a popular saying.

“For shame!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “And when they’re singing sweet little child-hymns too! There! they’re starting another.”

Mrs. Burton took the graceful listening attitude peculiar to ladies, her husband stood in the military position of “attention,” and both heard the following morceau:

“Hopper—h’m!” said Mr. Burton. “They refer to the hind-leg of a grasshopper, my dear. The angelic life would be indeed dreary to those youngsters without some such original plaything.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” said the lady. “I hope you won’t suggest any such notion to them. I don’t believe they would have had so many peculiar views about the next world if some one hadn’t exerted an improper influence—you and your brother-in-law Tom Lawrence, their father, for instance.”

“Well,” said Mr. Burton, “if they are so susceptible to the influence of others, I suppose you have them about reformed in most respects? You have had entire charge of them for seven days.”

“Six—only six,” corrected Mrs. Burton, hastily. “I wish——”

“That there really was one day less for them to remain?” said Mr. Burton, looking his wife full in the face.

Mrs. Burton dropped her eyes quickly, trying first to turn in search of something she did not want, but her husband knew his wife’s nature too much to be misled by this ruse. Putting as much tenderness in his voice as he knew how to do, he said:

“Little girl, tell the truth. Haven’t you learned more than they?”

Mrs. Burton still kept her eyes out of range of those of her husband, but replied with composure:

“I have learned a great deal, as one must when brought in contact with a new subject, but the acquired knowledge of an adult is the source of new power, and of much and more knowledge to be imparted.”

Mr. Burton contemplated his wife with curiosity which soon made place for undisguised admiration, but when he turned his face again to the mirror he could see in its expression nothing but pity. Meanwhile the cessation of the children’s songs, the confused patter of little feet on the stair, and an agonized yelp from the dog Terry, indicated that the boys had left their chamber. Then the Burtons heard their own door-knob turned, an indignant kick which followed the discovery that the door was bolted, and then a shout of:

“Say!”

“What’s wanted?” asked Mr. Burton.

“I want to come in,” answered Budge.

“Me, too,” piped Toddie.

“What for?”

A moment of silence ensued, and then Budge answered:

“Why, because we do. I should think anybody would understand that without asking.”

“Well, we bolted the door because we didn’t want any one to come in. I should think anybody could understand that without asking.”

“Oh! Well, I’ll tell you what we want to come in for; we want to tell you something perfectly lovely.”

“Do you wish to listen to an original romance, my dear?” asked Mr. Burton.

“Certainly,” replied the lady.

“And break your resolution to teach them that our chamber is not a general ante-breakfast gathering-place?”

“Oh, they won’t infer anything of the kind if we admit them just once,” said Mrs. Burton.

“H’m—we won’t count this time,” quoted Mr. Burton from “Rip Van Winkle,” with a suggestive smile, which was instantly banished by a frown from his wife. Mr. Burton dutifully drew the bolt and both boys tumbled into the room.

“We were both leaning against the door,” explained Budge; “that’s why we dropped over each other. We knew you’d let us in.”

Mr. Burton gave his wife another peculiar look which the lady affected not to notice as she asked:

“What is the lovely thing you were going to tell us?”

“Why——”

“I—I—I—I—I——” interrupted Toddie.

“Tod, be still!” commanded Budge. “I began it first.”

“But I finked it fyst,” expostulated Toddie.

[Ilustration: BOTH BOYS TUMBLED INTO THE ROOM]

“I’ll tell you what, then, Tod—I’ll tell ’em about it an’ you worry ’em to do it. That’ fair, isn’t it?” and then, without awaiting the result of Toddie’s deliberations Budge continued:

“What we want is a picnic. Papa’ll lend you the carriage, and we’ll get in it and go up to the Falls, and have a lovely day of it. That’s just the nicest place I ever saw. You can swing us in the big swing there, an’ take us in swimmin’, an’ row us in a boat, an’ buy us lemonade at the hotel, an’ we can throw stones in the water, an’ paddle, an’ catch fish, an’ run races. All these other things—not the first ones I told you about—we can do for ourselves, an’ you an’ Aunt Alice can lie on the grass under the trees, an’ smoke cigars, an’ be happy, ’cause you’ve made us happy. That’s the way papa does. An’ you must take lots of lunch along, ’cause little boys gets pretty empty-feeling when they go to such places. Oh, yes—an’ you can throw Terry in the water an’ make him swim after sticks—I’ll bet he can’t get away there without our catching him.”

“But de lunch has got to be lots,” said Toddie, “else dere won’t be any fun—not one bittie. An’ you’ll take us, won’t you? We’ze been dreadful good all mornin’. I’ze singed Sunday songs until my froat’s all sandy.”

“All what?” asked Mrs. Burton.

“Sandy,” replied Toddie. “Don’t you know how funny it feels to rub sand between your hands when you hazhn’t got djuvs on? If you don’t, I’ll go bring you in some.”

“Your aunt will take your word for it,” said Mr. Burton, as his wife did not respond.

“An’ we’ll be awful tired after the picnic’ done,” said Budge, “an’ you can hold us in your arms in the carriage all the way back. That’s the way papa an’ mamma does.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Burton. “That will be an inducement. And it explains why your papa can make a new coat look old quicker than any other man of my acquaintance.”

“And why your mother always has a skirt to clean or mend,” said Mrs. Burton.

“It’s all told now, Tod,” said Budge. “Why don’t you worry ’em?”

Toddie clasped his aunt’s skirts affectionately, and said, in most appealing tones:

“You’e a-goin’ to, izhn’t you?”

“Papa says it was always easier for you to say ‘yes’s than ‘no,’” remarked Budge; “an’——”

“A fine reputation your brother-in-law gives you,” remarked Mrs. Burton.

“An’ I once heard a lady say she thought you said ‘yes’s pretty easy,” continued Budge, addressing his aunt. “I thought she meant something that you said to Uncle Harry, by the way she talked.” Mrs. Burton flushed angrily, but Budge continued: “An’ you ought to be as good to us as you are to him, ’cause he’s a big man, an’ don’t have to be helped every time he wants any fun. Besides, you’ve got him all the time, but you can only have us four days longer—three days besides to-day.”

“Another paraphrase of Scripture—application perfect,” remarked Mr. Burton to his wife. “Shall we go?”

“Can you?” asked the lady, suddenly grown radiant.

“I suppose—oh, I know I can,” replied Mr. Burton, assuming that the anticipation of a day in his society was the sole cause of his wife’s joy.

Mrs. Burton knew his thoughts but failed to correct them, guilty though she felt at her neglect. That she would be practically relieved of responsibility during the day was the cause of her happiness. The children had always preferred the companionship of their uncle to that of his wife; she had at times been secretly mortified and offended at this preference, but in the week just ending she had entirely lost this feeling.

The announcement that their host and hostess thought favorably of the proposition was received by the boys with lively manifestations of delight, and for two hours no other two persons in the state were more busy than Budge and Toddie. Even their appetites gave way under the excitement and their stay at the breakfast table was of short duration.

Budge visited his father and arranged for the use of the carriage while Toddie superintended the packing of the eatables until the cook banished him from the kitchen, and protected herself from subsequent invasion by locking the door. Then both boys suggested enough extra luggage to fill a wagon and volunteered instructions at a rate which was not retarded by the neglect with which their commands were received.

When the last package was taken into the carriage the dog Terry was helped to a seat and the party started. They had been en route about five minutes, when Budge remarked:

“Uncle Harry, I want a drink.”

“Uncle Harry,” said Toddie, “I’m ’most starved to deff. I didn’t have hardly any brekspup.”

“Why not?” asked Mrs. Burton. “Wasn’t there plenty on the table?”

“I doe know,” Toddie replied, looking inquiringly into his aunt’s face as if to refresh his memory.

“Weren’t you hungry at breakfast-time?” continued Mrs. Burton.

“I—I—I—I—why, yesh—I mean my tummuk wazh hungry, but my toofs wasn’t—dat’ de way it wazh. An’ I guesh what I’d better have now is sardines an’ pie.”

“Ethereal creature!” exclaimed Mr. Burton, giving Toddie a cracker.

“I didn’t remember that I was hungry,” said Budge, “but Tod’s talking about it reminds me. An’ I’d like that drink, too.”

Budge also received some crackers and the carriage was stopped near a well. The descent of Mr. Burton from the carriage compelled the dog Terry to change his base, which operation was so impeded by skillful efforts on the part of the boys that Terry suddenly leaped to the ground and started for home, followed by a remonstrance from Toddie, while Budge remarked:

“He won’t ever go to heaven, Terry won’t. He don’t like to make people happy.”

Away went the carriage again and it had reached the extreme outskirts of the town when Toddie said:

“I’m awful fursty.”

“Why didn’t you drink when Budge did?” demanded Mr. Burton.

“’Cauzh I didn’t want to,” replied Toddie. “I izhn’t like old choo-choos dat getsh filled up dzust ’cause dey comes to a watering playzh. I only likesh to dwink when I’zhe fursty; an’ I’zhe fursty now.”

Another well was approached; Toddie drank about two swallows of water, and replied to his aunt’s declaration that he couldn’t have been thirsty at all by the explanation:

“I doezn’t hold very much. I izhn’t like de horsesh, dat can dwink whole pails full of water, an’ den hazh room for gwash. But I guesh I’zhe got room for some cake.”

“Then I’ll give you another cracker,” said Mr. Burton.

“Don’t want one,” said Toddie. “Cwacker couldn’t push itself down as easy as cake.”

“I do believe,” said Mrs. Burton, “that the child’s animal nature has taken complete possession of him. Eating and mischief has been the whole of his life during the week, yet he used to be so sweetly fanciful and sensitive.”

“Children’s wits are like the wind, my dear,” said Mr. Burton. “’Thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth’; you set your sails for it, and behold it isn’t there, but when you’re not expecting it, down comes the gale.”

“A gale!” echoed Budge. “That’s what we’re goin’ to have to-day.”

“Izn’t neiver,” said Toddie. “Goin’ to hazh a picnic.”

“Well, gales and picnics is the same thing,” said Budge.

“No, dey izhn’t. Galesh is kind o’s rough, but picnics is nysh. Galesh is like rough little boysh, like you, but picnics is nysh, like dear little sister-babies.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Budge, “we haven’t seen that baby for two days. Let’s go right back an’ look at her.”

“Budge, Budge!” remonstrated Mrs. Burton; “try to be content with what you have, and don’t always be longing for something else. You can go to see her when we return.”

“I can see her wivout goin’ back,” said Toddie. “I can see anybody I wantsh to, dzust whenever I pleash.”

“Don’t be silly, Toddie,” remonstrated Mrs. Burton, in spite of a warning nudge from her husband.

“How do you see them, Toddie?” asked Mr. Burton.

“Why, I duzst finks a fink about ’em, an’ den dey comezh wight inshide of my eyezh, an’ I sees ’em. I see lotsh of peoples dat-a-way. I sees AbrahammynIsaac, an’ Bliaff, an’ little Dave, an’ de Hebrew children, an’ Georgie Washitton hatchetin’ down his papa’s tree, whenever I finks about ’em. Oh, dere goezh a wabbit! Letsh stop an’ catch him.”

“Oh, no, let him go,” said Mr. Burton. “Perhaps he’s going home to dinner, and his family are all waiting at the table for him.”

“Gwacious!” said Toddie, opening his eyes very wide and keeping silence for at least two minutes. Then he said, “I saw a wabbit family eatin’ dinner once. Dey had a little bittie of a table, an’ little bitsh of chairzh, an’ de papa wabbit ashkted a blessin’ an’——”

“Toddie, Toddie, don’t tell fibs!” said Mrs. Burton, as she again felt herself touched by her husband’s elbow.

“Izn’t tellin’ fibs! An’ a little boy wabbit said, ‘Papa, I wantsh a dwink.’s So his papa took a little tumbler, dzust about as big as a fimble, an’ held a big leaf up sideways so de dew would run off into de tumbler, an’ he gived it to the little boy wabbit. An’ when dey got done dinner, de mamma wabbit gave each of de little boy wabbits a strawberry to suck. An’ none of ’em had to be told to put on de napkins, ’cause dey only had one dwess, and dat was a color dat didn’t show dyte, like mamma says I ought to have.”

“Were all the little rabbits boys—no girls at all?” asked Mr. Burton.

“Yesh, dere was a little sister baby, but she wazh too little to come to de table, so de mamma wabbit held her in her lap and played ‘Little Pig Went to Market’s on her little bits of toes. Den de sister-baby got tired, an’ de mamma wabbit wocked it in a wockin’-tsair, an’ sung to it ’bout——

Den de baby-wabbit got tired of its mamma, an’ got down an’ cwept around on itsh handsh an’ kneezh, an’ didn’t dyty its djess at all or make its kneezh sore a bit, ’cauzh dere wazh only nice leaves an’ pitty fynes for it to cweep on, instead of ugly old carpets. Say, do you know I was a wabbit once?”

“Why, no,” said Mr. Burton. “Do tell us about it.”

“Harry!” remonstrated Mrs. Burton.

“He believes it, my dear,” explained her husband. “He has his ’weetly fanciful’ mood on now, that you were moaning for a few moments ago. Go on, Toddie.”

“Why, I was a wabbit, and lived all by myself in a hole froo de bottom of a tree. An’ sometimes uvver wabbits came to see me, an’ we all sat down on our foots an’ bowled our ears to each uvver. Dogsh came to see me sometimes, but I dzust let dem wing de bell an’ didn’t ask ’em to come in. An’ den a dzentleman came an’ asked me to help him make little boysh laugh in a circus. So I runned around de ring, and picked up men an’ fings wif my tchunk——”

“Rabbits don’t have trunks, Toddie.”

“I know it, but I tyned into a ephalant. An’ I got lotsh of hay an’ fings wif my tchunk, an’ folks gave me lotsh of cakes an’ candies to see me eat ’em wif my tchunk, an’ I was so big I could hold ’em all, an’ I didn’t have any mamma ephalant to say, ‘Too muts cake an’ candy will make you sick, Toddie.’”

“Anything more?” asked Mr. Burton. “We can stand almost anything.”

“Well, I gotted to be a lion den, and had to roar so much dat my froat gotted all sandy, so I got turned into a little boy again, an’ I was awful hungry. I guesh ’twas djust now.”

“Can you resist that hint, my dear?” Mr. Burton asked. His wife, with a sigh, opened a basket and gave a piece of cake to Toddie, who remarked:

“Dish izh to pay me for tellin’ de troof about all dem fings, izhn’t it?”

About this time the party reached Little Falls, and Budge said:

“I suppose lunch’ll be the first thing?”

“No,” said Mrs. Burton; “we won’t lunch until our usual hour.”

“But you can have all the drinks you want,” said Mr. Burton. “There’s a whole river full of water.”

“Oh, I don’t feel as if I’d ever be thirsty again,” said Budge. “But I wish Terry was here to swim in after sticks. You do it, won’t you? You play dog an’ I’ll play Uncle Harry an’ throw things to you.”

By this time Toddie had sought the water’ edge, and, taking a stooping position, looked for fish. The shelving stone upon which he stood was somewhat moist and Toddie was so intent on his search that he stooped forward considerably. Suddenly there was heard a splash and a howl, and Toddie was seen in the river, in water knee-deep. To rescue him was the work of only a moment, but to stop his tears was no such easy matter.

“What is to be done?” exclaimed Mrs. Burton.

“Take off his shoes and stockings and let him run barefooted,” said Mr. Burton. “The day is warm, so he can’t catch cold.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Toddie, “Izh I goin’ to be barefoot all day? I wishes dish river wazh wight by our housh; I’d tumble in every day. Budgie, Budgie, if you wantsh fun dzust go tumble splash into de river.”

But Budge had strolled away, and was tugging at some moss in a crevice of rock. Here his aunt found him, and he explained, toiling as he talked:

“I thought—this—would make such—a—lovely cushion for—for you to sit on.”

The last word and the final tug were concurrent and the moss gave way; so did Budge, and with a terrific scream, for a little snake had made his home under the moss, and was expressing indignation, in his own way, at being disturbed.

“I won’t never do nothin’ for nobody again,” screamed Budge. “I’ll see that snake every time I shut my eyes, now.”

“You poor, dear little fellow,” said Mrs. Burton, caressing him tenderly. “I wish Aunt Alice could do something to make you forget it.”

“Well, you can’t, unless—unless, maybe, a piece of pie would do it. It wouldn’t do any harm to try, I s’pose?”

Mrs. Burton hurried to unpack a pie, as her husband remarked that Budge was born to be a diplomatist. Looking suspiciously about, for fear that Toddie might espy Budge’s prescription, and devise some ailment which it would exactly suit, she discovered that Toddie was out of sight.

“Oh, he’s gone, Harry! Hurry and find him. Perhaps he’s gone above the Falls. I do wish we had gone further down the river!”

Mr. Burton took a lively double-quick up and along the bank of the river, but could see nothing of his nephew.

After two or three minutes, however, above the roar of the falling water, he heard a shrill voice singing over and over again a single line of an old Methodist hymn,

“Roar—ing riv—ers, migh—ty fountains!”

Following the sound, he peered over the bank, and saw Toddie in a sunny nook of rocks just below the Falls, and in a very ecstasy of delight. He would hold out his hands as if to take the fall itself; then he would throw back his head and render his line with more force; then he would dance frantically about, as if his little body was unable to comfortably contain the great soul within it.

Suddenly coming up the sands below the cliff appeared Mrs. Burton, whose apprehensions had compelled her to join in the search.

“Oh, Aunt Alish!” exclaimed Toddie, discovering his aunt, and hurrying to grasp her hand in both of his own; “dzust see de water dance! Do you see all de lovely lights dat de Lord’s lit in it? Don’t you wiss you could get in it, an’ fly froo it, an’ have it shake itself all over you, an’ shake yourself in it, an’ shake it all off of you, an’ den fly into it aden? Deresh placesh like dis up in hebben. I know, ’cauzh I saw ’em—one time I did. An’ all the andzels staid around ’em, an’ flew in an’ out, an’ froo an’ froo’s an’ laughed like everyfing!”

Mr. Burton concealed all of himself but his eyes and hat to observe the impending conflict of ideas; but no conflict ensued, for Mrs. Burton snatched her nephew and kissed him soundly. But Toddie wriggled away, exclaiming:

“Don’t do dat, or I’ll get some uvver eyes when I don’t want ’em.”

How long Toddie’s ecstasy might have endured the Burtons never knew, for a clatter of horse-hoofs on the road attracted Mr. Burton, and, looking hastily back, he beheld one of his brother’s horses galloping wildly back towards Hillcrest, while, just letting go of a reinstrap, and enlivening the dust of the roadway, was the form of the boy Budge, whose voice rose shrilly above the thunder of the falling waters.

Mr. Burton attempted first to catch the horse, but the animal shied successfully and had so clear a stretch of roadway before him that humanity soon had Mr. Burton’s heart for its own and he hurried to the assistance of Budge.

“I—boo-hoo—was just goin’ to lead the—boo-hoo-hoo—horse down to water like—boo-hoo-hoo—ah—like papa does, when he—oh! how my elbow hurts!—just pulled away an’ went off. An’ I caught the strap to stop him, an’—oh! he just pulled me along on my mouth in the dirt about ten miles. I swallowed all the dirt I could, but I guess I’ve got a mouthful left.”

Mr. Burton hurriedly unharnessed the other horse, and started, riding bareback, in search of the runaway, while his wife, who had intuitively scented trouble in the air, hurried up the cliff with Toddie, and led both boys to the shadow of the carriage, with instructions to be perfectly quiet until their uncle returned.

“Can’t we talk?” asked Toddie.

“Oh, not unless you need to for some particular purpose,” said Mrs. Burton, who, like most other people in trouble, fought most earnestly against any form of diversion which should keep her from the extremity of worry. “Can’t little boys’s mouths ever be quiet?”

“Why, yes,” said Budge, “when there’ something in ’em to keep ’em still.”

In utter desperation Mrs. Burton unpacked all the baskets and told the children to help themselves. As for her, she sought the roadside and gazed earnestly for her husband. Wearied at last by hope deferred she returned to the carriage to find that the boys had eaten all the pie and cake, drank the milk and ate the sugar which were to have formed part of some delicious coffee which Mr. Burton was to have made À la militaire, and had battered into shapelessness a box of sardines by attempting to open it with a stone.

“You bad boys!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton. “Now what will your poor uncle have to eat when he comes back all tired, hungry, and thirsty and all because of your mischief, Budge.”

“Why, we haven’t touched the crackers, Aunt Alice,” said Budge.” They’re what he gave us when we said we was awful hungry, an’ there’s a whole river full of water to drink, like he told us about when he thought we was thirsty.”

The information did not seem to console Mrs. Burton, who ventured to the roadside with the feeling that she could endure it to know that her husband was starving if she could only see him safe back again. The moments dragged wearily on, the boys grew restive and then cross, and at about three in the afternoon, Mr. Burton reappeared. The runaway had nearly reached home, breaking a shoe en route, and his captor had found it necessary to seek a blacksmith. The horse he rode had evidently never been broken to the saddle, and many had been the jeers of the village boys at his rider’s apparent mismanagement. All he knew now was that he was ravenously hungry.

“And the boys have eaten everything but the bread and crackers,” gasped Mrs. Burton. “I’ve not eaten a mouthful.”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Burton, feeling the boys’s waist-belts; “didn’t they throw anything away?”

“Only down our froats.” said Toddie.

“Then I’ll go to the nearest hotel,” said the disappointed man,” and get a nice dinner.”

“We’ll go too,” said Budge. “Pie an’ cake an’ all such things don’t fill people a bit on picnics.”

“Then a little emptiness will be best for you,” said Mr. Burton. “You remain here with your aunt.”

“Well, hurry up, then,” said Budge. “Here’s the afternoon half gone, Aunt Alice says, and you haven’t made us a whistle, or taken us in swimmin’, or let us catch fishes, or throwed big stones in the water for us, or anythin’.”

Mr. Burton departed with becoming meekness, his nephew’s admonition ringing in his ears, while the boys hovered solemnly about their aunt until she exclaimed:

“Why are you acting so strangely, boys?”

“Oh, we feel kind o’s forlorn, an’ we want to be comforted,” said Budge.

“Will you comfort poor Uncle Harry when he comes back?” asked Mrs. Burton.

“Why, I heard him once tell you that you were his comfort,” said Budge; “and comforts oughtn’t to be mixed up if folks is goin’ to get all the good out of ’em; that’s what papa says.”

Mrs. Burton kissed both nephews effusively and asked them what she could do for them.

“I doe know,” said Toddie.

Inspiration came to Mrs. Burton’s assistance and she said,

“You may both do exactly as you please.”

“Hooray!” shouted Budge.

“An’ you izhn’t goin’ to say ‘Don’t!’s a single bit?” Toddie asked.

“No.”

“Oh!” exclaimed both brothers, in unison.

Then they clasped hands and walked slowly and silently away. They even stopped to kiss each other, while Mrs. Burton looked on in silent amazement.

Was this really the result of not keeping a watchful eye upon children?

The boys rambled quietly along, sat down on a large rock, put their arms around each other and gazed silently at the scenery. They sat there until their uncle returned and their aunt pointed out the couple to him. Then the adults insensibly followed the example set by the juveniles, and on the banks of the river sweet peace ruled for an hour, until old Sol, who once stood still to look at a fight but never paused to contemplate humanity conquered by the tender influences of nature, warned the party that it was time to return.

“It’s time to go, boys,” said Mr. Burton, with a sigh.

The words snapped the invisible thread that had held the children in exquisite captivity, and they were boys again in an instant, though not without a wistful glance at the Eden they were leaving.

“Now, Uncle Harry,” said Budge, “there’ always one thing that’s got to be done before a picnic an’ a ride is just right, an’ that is for me to drive the horses.”

“An’ me to hold de whip,” said Toddie.

“Oh, I think you’ve done your whole duty to-day—both of you,” said Mr. Burton, instinctively grasping his lines more tightly.

“But we don’t,” said Budge, “an’ we know. Goin’ up the mountain papa always lets us do it an’ he says the horses always know the minute we take ’em in hand.”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Well, here’s a hill; take hold!”

Budge seized the reins, and Toddie took the whip from its socket. The noble animals at once sustained their master’s statement, for they began to prance in a manner utterly unbecoming quiet family horses. Mrs. Burton clutched her husband’s arm, and Mr. Burton prudently laid his own hand upon the loop of the reins.

The crest of the hill was reached, Mr. Burton took the reins from the hand of his nephew, but Toddie made one final clutch at departing authority by giving the off horse a spirited cut. Tom Lawrence would never own a horse that needed a touch of the whip, though that emblem of authority always adorned his carriage. When, therefore, this unfamiliar attention greeted them the horse who was struck became gloriously indignant, and his companion sympathized with him and the heels of both animals shot high in the air and then, at a pace which nothing could arrest, the horses dashed down the rocky, rugged road. The top of a boulder, whose side had been cleanly washed, lay in the path of the carriage, and Mr. Burton gave the opposite rein a hasty twist about his hand as he tried to draw to the side of the road. But what was a boulder, that equine indignation should regard it? The stone was directly in front and in line of the wheels. Mrs. Burton prepared for final dissolution by clasping her husband tightly with one arm, while with the other she clutched at the reins. The boys started the negro hymn, “Oh, De Rocky Road to Zion,” the wheels struck the boulder, four people described curves in air and ceased only when their further progress was arrested by some bushes at the roadside. The carriage righted itself and was hurried home by the horses, while a party of pedestrians, two of whom were very merry and two utterly reticent, completed their journey on foot, pausing only to bathe scratched faces at a brookside. And when, an hour later, two little boys had been prepared for bed, and their temporary guardians were alternately laughing and complaining over the incidents of the day, a voice was heard at the head of the stairs, saying:

“Uncle Harry, are we going to finish the picnic to-morrow? ’Cause we didn’t get half through to-day. There’s lots of picnicky things that we didn’t get a chance to think about.”

And another voice shouted:

“An’ letsh take more lunch wif us. I’zhe been awful hungwy all day long!”