The next sensation was a moonlight picnic, given by the bachelors of Ramghur; the rendezvous was the Chinglepat road five miles out, on a low mound between the highway and the river. On the occasion the lady moon appeared unusually large and brilliant, as if aware that she was responsible for the feast; the night was still and breathless, but the hock was still iced. Like most bachelor entertainments, the picnic was a success; around and across the cloth flew corks, crackers, jokes, and chaff; the poor hot-weather folk were eating, drinking, and making merry just as if the thermometer did not stand at 98, and the merriest and most animated member of the company was Mrs. Wilkinson. She wore a charming white toilette, in which she totally eclipsed her rival, and was not unconscious of the fact; but she was also aware at the back of all her smiles that she herself was present entirely without her doctor's knowledge, and felt like an escaped prisoner, who was bound to be captured some day. But then she wanted so much to wear her new dress. It was modelled from Mrs. Rattray's vivid description of one of Mrs. Dawson's celebrated costumes, and was so exceedingly novel and becoming that she felt it no more or less than her duty to exhibit this ghost of a Paris toilette to her many admirers. To Mrs. Dawson it was indeed a phantom frock. All the world knew that Mrs. Wilkinson was amazingly clever, but how could she reproduce a garment which she had never seen? Here was yet another mystery. Angela, who by all domestic laws should have been in bed and asleep, had been permitted to join the company as Mr. Gascoigne's guest, and was supremely happy. She wore her new hat, lavishly trimmed with roses, and her best and simplest manners. Her host had brought her in his cart; indeed, he now drove her out daily, as he believed that it did the wan little creature good to get fresh air, such as it was, and it afforded one means of removing her from her stepfather's orbit. During these drives her cousin occasionally endeavoured in an awkward, clumsy fashion to improve the young mind, which was at present "wax to receive, and marble to retain;" his teaching was more adapted to a boy than a girl. His lessons—a mere sentence—brief, but pithy, showed her his abhorrence of lying, cowardice, and all mean actions. (Poor Angel listened with a tingling face, for she lived in an atmosphere of falsehood, and was conscious of certain small acts that were not creditable, chiefly connected with jam, hair ribbons, and beads; but in her heart Angel knew that she was no coward.) These seeds, casually cast by the wayside, and as casually received, were planted, and subsequently bore fruit, in the child's somewhat rocky little heart. * * * * *