wish to go near the house.'

'Maybe Mr. Audley, who was standing near the gate, added another more
substantial argument, for 'Oh, certainly, sir,' at once followed; and
the van was allowed to turn down a gravelled road, which skirted an
extensive plantation.

Every one now left it, except Mrs. Underwood, Cherry, and Angela; and
the children began to rush and roll in wild delight on the grassy
slope, and to fill their hands with the heather and ling, shrieking
with delight. Wilmet had enough to do to watch over Angela in her
toddling, tumbling felicity; while Felix, weighted with Robina on his
back, Edgar, Fulbert, Clement, and Lance, ran in and out among the
turf; and Alda, demurely walking by her papa, opined that it was
'very odd that the gentleman's name should be Underwood.'

'Less odd than if it was Upperwood,' said her father, as if to throw
aside the subject; and then, after a few moments' thought, and an odd
little smile, as if at some thought within himself, he began to hand
in flowers to Cherry, and to play with little Angela. Mr. Audley had
gone to put up his horse at the village inn, and did not join the
party again till they had reached what the children called Picnic
Hollow--a spot where a bank suddenly rose above a bright dimpling
stream with a bed of rock, the wood opening an exquisite vista under
its beech trees beyond, and a keeper's lodge standing conveniently
for the boiling of kettles.

Here the van was disposed of, the horses taken out and provided with
food, Cherry carried to a mossy throne under a glorious beech tree,
and the hampers unpacked by Mamma and Wilmet, among much capering and