ear.

"Oh, forty," replied Maggie; "but I should be rather ill afterwards."

"We've got some in our pockets. They're a little bit clammy, but you
don't mind that?"

"I don't want any just now, dear boy; and I'll tell you why. I want
to be really starving hungry when the picnic begins."

"That's a good notion, isn't it?" said Jackdaw.--"I say, Andrew, she
wants to be starving hungry when the picnic begins!"

Maggie resumed her seat, and the boys went on whispering together, and
kicking each other at intervals, and rather upsetting that very stolid
personage, Mr. Charles, the Meredith Manor coachman.

The picnic was a perfect success. When people are very happy there is
no room for discontent in their hearts, and all the members of that
party were in the highest spirits. The Cardew girls had no time yet
for that period of regret which must invariably follow a period of
intense excitement. They had no time yet to realize that they must
part with their father and mother for the greater portion of the
year.

To children so intensely affectionate as Cicely and Merry such a
parting must mean considerable pain. But even the beginning of the
pain did not come to them on that auspicious day, and they returned to
the house after the picnic in the highest good-humor.

Mr. and Mrs. Tristram, however, were wise in their generation; and
although Cicely and Merry begged and implored the whole party to come
to the Manor for supper, they very firmly declined. It is to be
regretted that both Jack and Andrew turned sulky on this occasion.

As the rectory girls and Maggie and the boys and Mr. and Mrs. Tristam
were all going homewards the two girls and Maggie fell behind.

"Isn't this real fun? Isn't it magnificent?" said Molly Tristram.

"It's a very good thing indeed for your friends Cicely and Merry,"
said Maggie. Then she added, "Didn't I tell you, girls, that you would
win your bracelets?"

Belle felt herself changing color.

"We don't want them a bit--we really don't," said Molly.

"Of course we don't want them," said Isabel.

"You'll have them all the same," said Maggie. "They are my present to
you. Surely you won't refuse my present?"

"But such a very rich and handsome present we ought not to accept,"
said Molly.

"Nonsense, girls! I shall be unhappy unless you wear them. When I
return to mother--which, alas! I must do before many days are over--I
shall send you the bracelets."

"I wish you wouldn't, Maggie,"