he baskets were not a quarter packed. Every one was
indolent, and a good deal tired; the gentlemen were smoking, and no one
seemed in a hurry.

When Kilian said, "What can I do for you. Miss Pauline?" I could not
help saying, "Take me home."

"Home!" cried Kilian. "Here is somebody talking about going home. Why,
Miss Pauline, I am just beginning to enjoy myself! only look, it is but
four o'clock."

"Oh, let us stay and go home by moonlight," cried Mary Leighton, in a
little rapture.

"Would it not be heavenly!" said Henrietta.

"How about tea?" said Charlotte. "We shall be hungry before moonlight,
and there isn't anything left to eat."

"How material!" cried Kilian, who had eaten an enormous dinner.

"We shall all get cold," said Sophie, who loved to be comfortable, "and
the children are beginning to be very cross."

"Small blame to them," muttered a dissatisfied man in my ear, who had
singled me out as a companion in discontent, and had pursued me with his
contempt for pastoral entertainments, and for this entertainment
in especial.

"Well, let the people that want to stay, stay; but let us go home," I
said, hastily.

"That is so like you, Pauline," exclaimed Mary Leighton, in a voice that
stung me like nettles.

"It is very like common-sense," I said, "if that's like me."

"Well, it isn't particularly."

"Let dogs delight," said Kilian, "I have a compromise to offer. If we go
home by the bridge we pass the little Brink hotel, where they give
capital teas. We can stop there, rest, get tea, have a dance in the
'ball-room,' sixteen by twenty, and go home by moonlight, filling the
souls of Miss Leighton and Henrietta with bliss."

A chorus of ecstasy followed this; Sophie herself was satisfied with the
plan, and exulted in the prospect of washing her face, and lying down on
a bed for half an hour, though only at a little country inn. Even this
low form of civilized life was tempting, after seven hours spent in
communion with nature on hard rocks.

Great alacrity was shown in getting ready and in getting off. I could
not speak to any one, not even the dissatisfied man, but walked away by
myself and tried to let no one see what I was feeling. After all was
ready, I got into the carriage beside one of the Miss Lowders, and the
dissatisfied man sat opposite. He wore canvas shoes and a corduroy suit,
and sleeve-buttons and studs that were all bugs and bees. I think I
could make a drawing of the sleeve-butto