ength of
time "all the one way"; there were layer cake, fig cake, rolled
jelly cake, election cake, cookies with a hole, cookies with a
raisin instead of a hole; there were dough nuts, Spanish bun and
ginger-bread. No wonder that every one ate until they were able to
eat no more.

Pearl helped to wait on the others. Danny did not say a word, but
just laid about him. At last he called Pearl to him, and, in a
muffled whisper, asked: "What is there now that I haven't had?" Pearl
then knew that he was approaching the high-water mark.

* * *

Having overruled Martha's objections to mingling with her fellow-men
at picnics, and having persuaded her to come and see for herself if
picnics were not a good thing, Pearl felt responsible for her
enjoyment of it.

Pearl had some anxious thoughts on the subject of a proper dress for
Martha for the picnic, when she found that her best summer dress was
a black muslin, which to Pearl seemed fit only for a funeral.

She wondered how to bring forward the subject without appearing rude,
when Martha saved her from all further anxiety one day by coming over
to ask her to help her to pick out a dress from the samples she had
sent for. The magazine had begun to bear fruit.

They decided on a white muslin with a navy blue silk dot in it, and
then Pearl suggested a blue ribbon girdle with long ends, a hat like
Camilla's, a blue silk parasol, and long blue silk gloves.

When Pearl saw Martha the day of the picnic, it just seemed too good
to be true that Martha could look so nice. She had braided her hair
the night before and made it all fluffy and wavy, and under the broad
brim of her blue hat it didn't look the colour of last year's hay at
all, Pearl thought. Martha herself seemed to feel less constrained
and awkward than she ever did before. Mrs. Francis would have called
it the "leaven of good clothes."

Pearl was wondering what she was going to do with Martha, now that
she had got her there, when she saw Arthur Wemyss, the young
Englishman.

She took him aside and said: "Arthur, you are the very fellow I want
to see. I've got Martha Perkins with me to-day, and she's pretty shy,
you know--never been to any of these picnics before--and I'm so busy
looking after all our young lads that I haven't time to go around
with her. Now, I wonder if you would take her around and be nice to
her. Martha's just a fine girl and young, too, if she only knew it,
and she should be having a good time