who fairly merited a longer regard, were fixed dreamily on the soft dreamlike landscape—the sun-steeped valley, the purple distance. It was a day for languorous dreaming; a day in which the world-worn soul might slip off the fetters of reality and roam at large in shadowland. ‘Dibb,’ said Daphne, ever so slightly piqued at the unknown’s absent air, ‘don’t you think we ought to be going home? Poor dear Miss Toby will be anxious.’ ‘Not before six o’clock,’ replied the matter-of-fact Martha. ‘You told her with your own lips that she wasn’t to expect us before six. And what was the good of our carrying that heavy basket if we are not to eat our dinner here?’ ‘You have brought your dinner!’ exclaimed the stranger, suddenly waking from his dream. ‘How very delightful! Let us improvise a picnic.’ ‘The poor thing is hungry,’ thought Daphne, rather disappointed at what she considered a low trait in his character. Martha, with her face addressed to Daphne, began to distort her countenance in the most frightful manner, mutely protesting against the impropriety of sharing their meal with an unknown wanderer. Daphne, who was as mischievous as Robin Goodfellow, and doated on everything that was wrong, laughed these dumb appeals to scorn. ‘The poor thing shall be fed,’ she said to herself. ‘Perhaps he has hardly a penny in his pockets. It will be a pleasure to give him a good meal and send him on his way rejoicing. I shall feel as meritorious as the Good Samaritan.’ ‘Is this the basket?’ asked the painter, pouncing upon the beehive receptacle which Martha had been hugging for the last five minutes. ‘Do let me be useful. I have a genius for picnics.’ ‘I never heard of such impertinence!’ ejaculated Miss Dibb inwardly; and then she began to wonder whether the valuable watch and chain which her father had given her on her last birthday were safe in such company, or whether her earrings might not be suddenly wrenched out of her ears. And there was that reckless Daphne, who had not the faintest notion of propriety, entering into the thing eagerly as a capital joke, and making herself as much at home with the nameless intruder as if she had known him all her life. Miss Dibb had been Daphne’s devoted slave for the last two years, had admired her and believed in her, and fetched and carried for her, and had been landed in all manner of scrapes and difficulties by her without a murmur; but she had never been so near revolt as at this moment, when her deep-rooted, thoroughly British sense of propriety was outraged as it had never in all Daphne’s escapades been outraged before. A strange man, fairly well-mannered it is true, but shabbily clad, was to be allowed to hob and nob in a place of public resort with two of Madame Tolmache’s young ladies.