he end of August. The nights were as
full of light as the days--everywhere, save in the low dusky meadows
by the river-side, where the mists rose and blended the pale sky with
the lands below. Unknowing of the care and trouble around them, Mary
and Elizabeth exulted in the weather, and saw some new glory in every
touch of the year's decay. They were clamorous for an expedition
to the hills, before the calm stillness of the autumn should be
disturbed by storms. They gained permission to go on the next
Wednesday--the next half-holiday. They had won their mother over to
consent to a full holiday, but their father would not hear of it. Mrs
Bradshaw had proposed an early dinner, but the idea was scouted at by
the girls. What would the expedition be worth if they did not carry
their dinners with them in baskets? Anything out of a basket, and
eaten in the open air, was worth twenty times as much as the most
sumptuous meal in the house. So the baskets were packed up, while
Mrs Bradshaw wailed over probable colds to be caught from sitting on
the damp ground. Ruth and Leonard were to go; they four. Jemima had
refused all invitations to make one of the party; and yet she had a
half-sympathy with her sisters' joy--a sort of longing, lingering
look back to the time when she too would have revelled in the
prospect that lay before them. They, too, would grow up, and suffer;
though now they played, regardless of their doom.

The morning was bright and glorious; just cloud enough, as some one
said, to make the distant plain look beautiful from the hills, with
its floating shadows passing over the golden corn-fields. Leonard
was to join them at twelve, when his lessons with Mr Benson, and the
girls' with their masters, should be over. Ruth took off her bonnet,
and folded her shawl with her usual dainty, careful neatness, and
laid them aside in a corner of the room to be in readiness. She
tried to forget the pleasure she always anticipated from a long walk
towards the hills, while the morning's work went on; but she showed
enough of sympathy to make the girls cling round her with many a
caress of joyous love. Everything was beautiful in their eyes; from
the shadows of the quivering leaves on the wall to the glittering
beads of dew, not yet absorbed by the sun, which decked the gossamer
web in the vine outside the window. Eleven o'clock struck. The Latin
master went away, wondering much at the radiant faces of his pupils,
and thinking tha