rth on our expedition with the reasonable
hope of obtaining that pleasure we sought in pleasant prospects, cheerful
society, fresh air, good cheer and exercise, without the alloy of bad
roads, cold winds, or threatening clouds. Then, on a glorious morning,
we gathered our forces and set forth. The company consisted of Mrs. and
Master Graham, Mary and Eliza Millward, Jane and Richard Wilson, and
Rose, Fergus, and Gilbert Markham.

Mr. Lawrence had been invited to join us, but, for some reason best known
to himself, had refused to give us his company. I had solicited the
favour myself. When I did so, he hesitated, and asked who were going.
Upon my naming Miss Wilson among the rest, he seemed half inclined to go,
but when I mentioned Mrs. Graham, thinking it might be a further
inducement, it appeared to have a contrary effect, and he declined it
altogether, and, to confess the truth, the decision was not displeasing
to me, though I could scarcely tell you why.

It was about midday when we reached the place of our destination. Mrs.
Graham walked all the way to the cliffs; and little Arthur walked the
greater part of it too; for he was now much more hardy and active than
when he first entered the neighbourhood, and he did not like being in the
carriage with strangers, while all his four friends, mamma, and Sancho,
and Mr. Markham, and Miss Millward, were on foot, journeying far behind,
or passing through distant fields and lanes.

I have a very pleasant recollection of that walk, along the hard, white,
sunny road, shaded here and there with bright green trees, and adorned
with flowery banks and blossoming hedges of delicious fragrance; or
through pleasant fields and lanes, all glorious in the sweet flowers and
brilliant verdure of delightful May. It was true, Eliza was not beside
me; but she was with her friends in the pony-carriage, as happy, I
trusted, as I was; and even when we pedestrians, having forsaken the
highway for a short cut across the fields, beheld the little carriage far
away, disappearing amid the green, embowering trees, I did not hate those
trees for snatching the dear little bonnet and shawl from my sight, nor
did I feel that all those intervening objects lay between my happiness
and me; for, to confess the truth, I was too happy in the company of Mrs.
Graham to regret the absence of Eliza Millward.

The former, it is true, was most provokingly unsociable at
first--seemingly bent upon talking to n