"Oh! I am so glad," she said. "It seemed so shocking that you
should refuse to join us. And mind and be early, Maurice; for I
shall want to explain it all. We are to meet, you know, at Clifton
Gate at one o'clock, but do you be a little before that, and we shall
be there."
Maurice Cumming resolved within his own breast as he rode back to
Spanish Town, that if Marian behaved to him all that day at the
picnic as she had done this day at Shandy Hall, he would ask her to
be his wife before he left her.
And Miss Jack also was to be at the picnic.
"There is no need of going early," said she, when her nephew made a
fuss about the starting. "People are never very punctual at such
affairs as that; and then they are always quite long enough." But
Maurice explained that he was anxious to be early, and on this
occasion he carried his point.
When they reached Clifton Gate the ladies were already there; not in
carriages, as people go to picnics in other and tamer countries, but
each on her own horse or her own pony. But they were not alone.
Beside Miss Leslie was a gentleman, whom Maurice knew as Lieutenant
Graham, of the flag-ship at Port Royal; and at a little distance
which quite enabled him to join in the conversation was Captain
Ewing, the lieutenant with the narrow waist of the previous year.
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