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THAT open grassy spot in the dense shadow of
the west woods was just the place for a picnic,
and it looked very bright and pleasant that
warm June afternoon, with the rustic table so fancifully
arranged, the camp-stools scattered over the lawn, and
the bouquets of flowers depending from the trees.

Fanny Hetherton had given it her whole care, aided
and abetted by Mr. Bellamy, what time he could spare
from Lucy, who, endued with a mortal fear of insects,
seemed this day to gather scores of bugs and worms upon
her dress and hair, screaming with every worm, and
bringing Simon obediently to her aid.

“I'd stay at home, I think, if I was silly enough to be
afraid of a harmless caterpillar like that,” Fanny had said,
as with her own hands she took from Lucy's curls and
threw away a thousand-legged thing, the very sight of
which made poor Lucy shiver, but did not send her to
the house.

She was too much interested and too eagerly expectant
of what the afternoon would bring, and so she perched

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herself upon the fence where nothing but ants could molest
her, and finished the bouquets which Fanny hung
upon the trees until the lower limbs seemed one mass
of blossoms and the air was filled with the sweet perfume.

Lucy was bewitchingly beautiful that afternoon in her
dress of white, with her curls tied up with a blue ribbon,
and her fair arms bare nearly to the shoulders. Fanny,
whose arms were neither plump nor white, had expostulated
with her cousin upon this style of dress, suggesting
that one as delicate as she could not fail to take a heavy
cold when the dews began to fall; but Lucy would not
listen. Arthur Leighton had told her once that he liked
her with bare arms, and bare they should be. She was
bending every energy to please and captivate him, and a
cold was of no consequence provided she succeeded. So
like some little fairy, she danced and flitted about, making
fearful havoc with Mr. Bellamy's wits, and greatly vexing
Fanny, who hailed with delight the arrival of Mrs.
Meredith and Anna. The latter was very pretty and
very becomingly attired in a light, airy dress of blue,
finished at the throat and wrists with an edge of soft, fine
lace. She, too, had thought of Arthur in the making of
her toilet, and it was for him that the white rose-buds
were placed in her heavy braids of hair, and fastened on
her belt. She was very sorry that she had allowed herself
to be vexed with Lucy Harcourt for her familiarity

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with Mr. Leighton, very hopeful that he had not observed
it, and very certain now of his preference for herself.
She would be very gracious that afternoon, she thought,
and not one bit jealous of Lucy, though she called him
Arthur a hundred times.

Thus it was in the most amiable of moods that Anna
appeared upon the lawn, where she was warmly welcomed
by Lucy, who, seizing both her hands, led her away to see
their arrangements, chatting gayly all the time, and casting
rapid glances up the lane as if in quest of some
one.

“I'm so glad you've come. I've thought of you so
much. Do you know it seems to me there must be some
bond of sympathy between us, or I should not like you so
well at once. I drove by the rectory early this morning,
the dearest little place, with such a lovely garden. Arthur
was working in it, and I made him give me some
roses. See, I have one in my curls. Then, when he
brought them to the carriage, I kept him there while I
asked numberless questions about you, and heard from
him just how good you are, and how you help him in the
Sunday-school and everywhere, visiting the poor, picking
up ragged children, and doing things I never thought of
doing; but I am not going to be so useless any longer,
and the next time you visit some of the very miserablest,
I want you to take me with you.

“Do you ever meet Arthur there? Oh, here he

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comes,” and with a bound, Lucy darted away from Anna
towards the spot where the rector stood receiving Mrs.
and Miss Hetherton's greeting.

As Lucy had said, she had driven by the rectory, with
no earthly object but the hope of seeing the rector, and
had hurt him cruelly with her questionings of Anna, and
annoyed him a little with her anxious inquiries as to the
cause of his pallid face and sunken eyes; but she was so
bewitchingly pretty, and so thoroughly kind withal, that
he could not be annoyed long, and he felt better for having
seen her bright, coquettish face, and listened to her
childish prattle. It was a great trial for him to attend
the picnic that afternoon, but he met it bravely, and
schooled himself to appear as if there were no such things
in the world as aching hearts and cruel disappointments.
His face was very pale, but his recent headache would
account for that, and he acted his part successfully, shivering
a little, it is true, when Anna expressed her sorrow
that he should suffer so often from these attacks, and
suggested that he take a short vacation and go with them
to Saratoga.

“I should so much like to have you,” she said, and her
clear honest eyes looked him straight in the face, as she
asked why he could not.

“What does she mean?” the rector thought. “Is she
trying to tantalize me? I expected her to be natural, as
her aunt laid great stress on that, but she need not overdo

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the matter by showing me how little she cares for having
hurt me so.”

Then, as a flash of pride came to his aid, he thought,
“I will at least be even with her. She shall not have
the satisfaction of guessing how much I suffer,” and as
Lucy then called to him from the opposite side of the
lawn, he asked Anna to accompany him thither, just as
he would have done a week before. Once that afternoon
he found himself alone with her in a quiet part of the
woods, where the long branches of a great oak came
nearly to the ground, and formed a little bower which
looked so inviting that Anna sat down upon the gnarled
roots of the tree, and tossing her hat upon the grass, exclaimed,
“How nice and pleasant it is in here. Come
sit down, too, while I tell you again about my class in
Sunday-school, and that poor Mrs. Hobbs across the millstream.
You won't forget her, will you? I told her
you would visit her the oftener when I was gone. Do
you know she cried because I was going? It made me
feel so badly that I doubted if it was right for me to go,”
and pulling down a handful of the oak-leaves above her
head, Anna began weaving a chaplet, while the rector stood
watching her with a puzzled expression upon his face.
She did not act as if she ever could have dictated that letter,
but he had no suspicion of the truth, and answered
rather coldly, “I did not suppose you cared how much
we might miss you at home.”

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Something in his tone made Anna look up into his
face, and her eyes immediately filled with tears, for she
knew that in some way she had displeased him.

“Then you mistake me,” she replied, the tears still
glittering on her long eyelashes, and her fingers trembling
among the oaken leaves. “I do care whether I am
missed or not.”

“Missed by whom?” the rector asked, and Anna impetuously
replied, “Missed by the parish poor, and by
you, too, Mr. Leighton. You don't know how often I
shall think of you, or how sorry I am that—”

She did not finish the sentence, for the rector had
leaped madly at a conclusion, and was down in the grass
at her side with both her hands in his.

“Anna, O Anna,” he began so pleadingly, “have you
repented of your decision? Tell me that you have and it
will make me so happy. I have been so wretched ever
since.”

She thought he meant her decision about going to Saratoga,
and she replied, “I have not repented, Mr. Leighton.
Aunt Meredith thinks it's best, and so do I, though
I am sorry for you, if you really do care so much.”

Anna was talking blindly, her thoughts upon one subject,
while the rector's were upon another, and matters
were getting somewhat mixed when, “Arthur, Arthur,
where are you?” came ringing through the woods, and
Lucy Harcourt appeared, telling them that the

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refreshments were ready. “We are only waiting for you two,
wondering where you had gone, but never dreaming that
you had stolen away to make love,” she said playfully,
adding more earnestly as she saw the traces of agitation
visible in Anna's face, “and I do believe you were. If
so, I beg pardon for my intrusion.”

She spoke a little sharply, and glanced inquiringly at
Mr. Leighton, who, feeling that he had virtually been
repulsed a second time by Anna, answered her, “On the
contrary, I am very glad you came, and so I am sure is
Miss Anna. I am ready to join you at the table. Come,
Anna, they are waiting,” and he offered his arm to the
bewildered girl, who replied, “Not just now, please.
Leave me for a moment. I won't be long.”

Very curiously Lucy looked at Anna, and then at Mr.
Leighton, who, fully appreciating the feelings of the latter,
said, by way of explanation, “You see she has not quite
finished that chaplet which I suspect is intended for you.
I think we had better leave her,” and drawing Lucy's
arm under his own, he walked away, leaving Anna more
stunned and pained than she had ever been before.
Surely if love had ever spoken in voice and manner, it
had spoken when Mr. Leighton was kneeling on the grass,
holding her hands in his. “Anna, O Anna;” how she
had thrilled at the sound of those words and waited for
what might follow next. Why had his manner changed
so suddenly, and why had he been so glad to be

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interrupted. Had he really no intention of making love to
her; and if so, why did he rouse her hopes so suddenly
and then cruelly dash them to the ground? Was it that
he loved Lucy best, and that the sight of her froze the
words upon his lips?

“Let him take her, then. He is welcome for all of
me,” she thought; and as a keen pang of shame and disappointment
swept over her, she laid her head for a moment
upon the grass and wept bitterly. “He must have
seen what I expected, and I care most for that,” she
sobbed, resolving henceforth to guard herself at every
point, and do all that lay in her power to further Lucy's
interests. “He will thus see how little I really care,”
she said, and lifting up her head she tore in fragments
the wreath she had been making but which she could
not now place on the head of her rival.

Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with Lucy when she
joined the party assembled around the table, and he never
once looked at Anna, though he saw that her plate was
well supplied with the best of everything, and when at
one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly
placed another within her reach, standing a little before
her and trying evidently to shield her from too critical
observation. There were two at least who were glad
when the picnic was over, and various were the private
opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment.
Mr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled in

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his attempts to be especially attentive to Lucy Harcourt,
pronounced the whole thing “a bore,” Fanny, who had
been highly displeased with his deportment, came to the
conclusion that the enjoyment did not compensate for all
the trouble; and while the rector thought he had never
spent a more thoroughly wretched day, and Anna would
have given worlds if she had stayed at home, Lucy declared
that never in her life had she had so perfectly delightful
a time, always excepting, of course, “that moonlight
sail in Venice.”

p605-333

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