Nay, the world--the world, All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue To blaze its own interpretation! Three gallant officers, who had been enjoying the hospitality of Elysium for many weeks, were fired one day with a noble resolve to show their gratitude to the gentlemen and their devotion to the ladies by whom they had been so pleasantly entertained. It was an inspiration, everybody felt at once, and all Elysium thrilled with conscious responsiveness at the happy thought. There is a little valley near Elysium, a mile or two from the mountain's summit, where a green, smooth sward invites the weary climber to repose; where venerable deodars, towering on the steep hillside, stretch their limbs to ward off the fierce afternoon sun; where a headlong stream comes bubbling down among the thick-grown ferns and falls in a feathery cascade and disappears in the gorge below; where the Genius of the Mountains has, in fact, its chosen haunt. There you may sit and watch the rose-tipped snowy range warming into fresh life and beauty as the sun goes down, and fading into cold gloom as he disappears. Here, in a hundred suggestive nooks, Nature has hinted at a sylvan _tête-à-tête_, or spread a verdant curtain of wild growth to festoon an _al fresco_ banquet; and here it was that the three inspired officers resolved to give an entertainment that should at once do justice to the warmth of their feelings, the correctness of their tastes, and the profuseness of their liberality. It was to be a picnic--the picnic of the season--the picnic of the world; and if enchanting scenery, a cloudless sky, enthusiastic hosts, a crowd of pretty women, an army of devoted men, a community not too blasé to be easily amused, nor yet so unused to pleasure as not to know how to take it--if all these ingredients, backed with the music of a lovely band crashing out among the rocks, cookery over which, by gracious permission, the Viceroy's own chef presided, and champagne, iced to perfection in Himalayan snows, could make a success, then it would, as Maud expected, be indeed an era in the lives of all concerned. Mrs. Vereker, though perhaps less sanguine than her more youthful companion, determined to have a new dress for the occasion; and a committee of adorers discussed the rival merits of half-a-dozen projected costumes. Mrs. Vereker, however, treated all their suggestions with contempt, and determined in the depths of her own consciousness on something that should be a sweet surprise. Maud, happily, had one of her English treasures which was still unknown to the admiring public, and which she felt at once would be the very thing.