Why was Pilot put into the beach wagon instead of the buggy? Because it was the wedding anniversary of the Reverend Timothy Chanter and his Susan, and they were going on their annual picnic together. Unlike the Gilpin pair of immortal memory, they did not take the children with them. The children saw them off at the door, with many injunctions to be good, and to have a wonderful time, and not to get lost, as they did two years ago. "Kitty," cried Lina, "_do blaze a tree_ at the place where you leave them, won't you? They are not to be trusted _in the least_." On this one day of the year, the minister and his wife cast care to the winds, locked duty up in the cupboard, and even shut the door on parental responsibility. They were no longer Drudge and Drudgess, as the girls, exasperated at the vanity of efforts to "save Pa and Ma," sometimes called them: they were Tim and Sue off on their holiday. They were to be taken first for a spin behind Pilot, because that was the greatest treat the Reverend Timothy could offer his faithful partner; then they were to be left at a certain place near the Lancaston Road, where the wood dipped sharply to a cup, enclosing a round pool, with a waterfall above it, and a ribbon of streamlet winding away at either end. Here they would sit and eat their luncheon, carefully prepared by Daughters; cold chicken (dear Madam Flynt always sent them a chicken the day before, one of her own prize Rhode Island Reds!), nut bread (Zephine's specialty), coffee and sponge cake (which no one could make like Lina), and some of dear Nelly's cream peppermints to top off with. These cates disposed of, the Reverend Timothy would light his pipe, and lean back against a sun-warmed boulder, at peace with the world, while Mrs. Chanter read aloud a certain chapter of "Prue and I" which had been the precipitating drop in their cup of happiness twenty-three years before. Then he would go to sleep, dear man, and she would knit, and think what a happy woman she was, and wonder if there was enough mutton for to-morrow, or if she must have a vegetable chowder. By and by, when the sunbeams began to slant through the firs, she would wake her lord, who would fear he had missed that last sentence, my love! and the two would wander happily through the wood and along the elm-shaded road, and so home in time for the wonderful supper the girls would have ready, and the glorified table round which all six children would be gathered. A golden day, for two golden hearts! May their fiftieth anniversary find them hale and vigorous as their twenty-third!