pright, with their plates on their laps; the younger ones who
had gone for the water, and their friends of the same age, managed to
assume more graceful attitudes; while the young men who had been to
school and college, and had read how the Romans took their meals,
stretched themselves out at the feet of the former, leaning on their
elbows, and occasionally, when not actually engaged in conveying ham and
chicken or pie to their mouths, giving glances at the bright and
laughing eyes above them. The hilarious old gentleman tried kneeling,
that he might carve a round of beef placed before him, but soon found
that attitude anything but pleasant to his feelings; then he sat with
one side to the cloth, then with the other. At last he scraped a trench
in the sand sufficient to admit his outstretched legs, and, placing the
beef before him, carved vigorously away till all claimants were
supplied. The younger boys and girls, tucking their legs under them
like Turks, speedily bestowed their undivided attention to the task of
stowing away the good things spread out before their eyes.

"This is jolly, don't you think so, Mary?" exclaimed a fine boy of about
fourteen to a pretty little girl who sat next to him; "there is only one
thing wanting to make it perfect--Harry Merryweather ought to be here.
He wrote word that he expected to be with us this morning, and I told
him where the picnic was to take place, that should he be too late to
get home, he might come here direct. Oh, he is such a capital fellow,
and now that he is in the navy, and has actually been in a battle, he
will have so much to tell us about."

Mary Rymer fully agreed with David Moreton, for Harry was a favourite
with every one who knew him. Although Harry Merryweather had not
arrived for the picnic, his friends appeared to be enjoying themselves
very much, judging by the smiles and giggling and the chattering, and
the occasional shouts of laughter which arose when old Mr Tom Sowton,
and florid, fat Mr Billy Burnaby, uttered some of their jokes. Not
that they were the only people who uttered good things, but they were
professed jokers, and seemed to consider it their duty to make people
merry; Mr Burnaby, indeed, if he could not make people laugh at what he
said, made them laugh at what he did.

The party had come from various quarters in the neighbourhood, some from
a distance inland, in carriages, and two or three families who lived on
or near the coast, in