And now the banquet was spread upon the short smooth turf, and everybody
was ordered to sit down. They made a merry circle, with the tea-kettle in
the centre, piles of cake, and bread and butter, and jam-pots surrounding
it. Blanche and Horatio were the chief officiators, and were tremendously
busy ministering to the wants of others, while they satisfied their own
hunger and thirst hurriedly between whiles. The damsel sat on the grass
with a big crockery teapot in her lap, while her brother watched and
managed the kettle, and ran to and fro with cups and saucers. Bessie, as
the guest of honour, was commanded to sit still and look on.

'Dreadfully babyish, isn't it?' said Urania, smiling with her superior
air at Brian, who had helped himself to a crust of home-made bread, and a
liberal supply of gooseberry jam.

'Uncommonly jolly,' he answered gaily. 'I confess to a weakness for bread
and jam. I wish people always gave it at afternoon teas.'

'Has it not a slight flavour of the nursery?'

'Of course it has. But a nursery picnic is ever so much better than a
swell garden-party, and bread and jam is a great deal more wholesome than
salmon-mayonaise and Strasbourg pie. You may despise me as much as you
like, Miss Rylance. I came here determined to enjoy myself.'

'That is the right spirit for a picnic,' said Ida, 'People with grand
ideas are not wanted.'

'And I suppose in the evening you will join in the dumb charades, and
play hide-and-seek in the garden, all among spiders and cockchafers.'