a lady, the
chances are you know more about her than you would do from a year's
acquaintance fostered by a dozen London parties; and a journey up the
Nile with a man may be considered quite equal to three years spent
together at the same college,--that is, if the fellow-travellers be
young. After a certain age, men never become really intimate, let
their relations with each other be ever so close.

"There will be a Miss Baker there, sir, who says she knows you; and a
Miss Waddington, a very fine girl, who at any rate knows my name."

"What! Caroline Waddington?"

"Yes, Caroline Waddington."

"She is a ward of your uncle."

"So Miss Baker tells me; but I never heard my uncle mention them.
Indeed, he never mentions anything."

"It will be very desirable that you should know Miss Waddington.
There is no saying what your uncle may do with his money. Yes, I'll
go to the picnic; only I hope the place is not distant." So that
matter was settled.

CHAPTER IX.

MISS TODD'S PICNIC.

That matter of obtaining permission for Sir Lionel to join the
picnic was not found difficult of arrangement. Good-looking,
pleasant-mannered Sir Lionels, who bear the Queen's commission,
and have pleasant military ways with them, are welcome enough at
such parties as these, even though they be sixty years of age. When
George mentioned the matter to Miss Todd, that lady declared herself
delighted. She had heard, she said, of the distinguished arrival at
the hotel, but she had been almost afraid to ask such a man as Sir
Lionel to join their foolish little party. Then Miss Baker, who in
this affair bore the next authority to Miss Todd, declared that she
had intended to ask him, taking upon herself the freedom of an old
acquaintance; and so that matter was arranged.

The party was not to be a large one. There was Miss Todd, the
compounder of it, a maiden lady, fat, fair, and perhaps almost forty;
a jolly jovial lady, intent on seeing the world, and indifferent to
many of its prejudices and formal restraints. "If she threw herself
in Sir Lionel's way, people would of course say that she wanted to
marry him; but she did not care a straw what people said; if she
found Sir Lionel agreeable, she would throw herself in his way." So
she told Miss Baker--with perhaps more courage than the occasion
required.

Then there was Mrs. and Miss Jones. Miss Jones was the young lady who
lost her parasol on the Mount of Offence, and so recklessly c