red the
whole book and most of the songs, which gradually had filled up almost
half of the blank pages.

It was the month of June, and Reinhard was to start on the following
day. It was proposed to spend one more festive day together and
therefore a picnic was arranged for a rather large party of friends in
an adjacent forest.

It was an hour's drive along the road to the edge of the wood, and
there the company took down the provision baskets from the carriages
and walked the rest of the way. The road lay first of all through a
pine grove, where it was cool and darksome, and the ground was all
strewed with pine needles.

After half an hour's walk they passed out of the gloom of the pine
trees into a bright fresh beech wood. Here everything was light and
green; every here and there a sunbeam burst through the leafy
branches, and high above their heads a squirrel was leaping from
branch to branch.

The party came to a halt at a certain spot, over which the topmost
branches of ancient beech trees interwove a transparent canopy of
leaves. Elisabeth's mother opened one of the baskets, and an old
gentleman constituted himself quartermaster.

"Round me, all of you young people," he cried, "and attend carefully
to what I have to say to you. For lunch each one of you will now get
two dry rolls; the butter has been left behind at home. The extras
every one must find for himself. There are plenty of strawberries in
the wood--that is, for anyone who knows where to find them. Unless you
are sharp, you'll have to eat dry bread; that's the way of the world
all over. Do you understand what I say?"

"Yes, yes," cried the young folks.

"Yes, but look here," said the old gentleman, "I have not done yet. We
old folks have done enough roaming about in our time, and therefore we
will stay at home now, here, I mean, under these wide-spreading trees,
and we'll peel the potatoes and make a fire and lay the table, and by
twelve o'clock the eggs shall be boiled.

"In return for all this you will be owing us half of your
strawberries, so that we may also be able to serve some dessert. So
off you go now, east and west, and mind be honest."

The young folks cast many a roguish glance at one another.

"Wait," cried the old gentleman once again. "I suppose I need not tell
you this, that whoever finds none need not produce any; but take
particular note of this, that he will get nothing out of us old folks
either. Now you have had enough g