The origin of the Coppinger's Court picnic was complicated and has
remained obscure. Whether its author had been Mrs. Mangan, or her
friend, Mrs. Whelply, or young Mr. Coppinger himself, was uncertain,
but the fact remained that a picnic, with indirect reference to the
blossoming of the bluebells (_i.e._, the wild hyacinths) was
decided upon, and that Larry, in the course of the visit that he never
failed to pay to the Mangan household, had placed the demesne of
Coppinger's Court at the disposal of the ladies of Cluhir, as a scene
for the entertainment.

Larry's fidelity to the Mangans was a matter that was undoubtedly
something of a trial to his Aunt Freddy. She was too inflexibly
conscientious to attempt to deny, even to Lady Isabel, still less to
herself, that such fidelity was creditable, but she felt justified in
considering it superfluous; when, as now, it took the form of inviting
a party of unknown size, under the patronage of Mrs. Mangan, to accept
the Ownashee as its washpot, and (as it were) to cast forth its shoe
over Coppinger's Court, Aunt Freddy may be forgiven the manoeuvre that
arranged a _séance_ with her Dublin dentist for the date decided
upon for the picnic, and may be felt to deserve the sympathy of those
who can appreciate the inwardness of her position. And this last,
improbable though it may seem to some people, was made immensely more
difficult by the simple and irrelevant fact that she, on Sundays,
betook herself to the Knock Ceoil Protestant church, while Larry went
to the white chapel on the hill. It was to the grey, stone Protestant
church that Larry's forbears had gone for one hundred and fifty years
or more, even since the then reigning Coppinger had fallen in love
with an English heiress, and, agreeing with Henri Quatre, that Paris
was well worth a Mass, had 'verted to marry her. Never in living
memory had the congregations that filled full the white chapel on the