’Make the tea, Sam,’ I exclaimed, ’the kettle’s boiling; mind you don’t set the woods alight.’ ’Have I ever set the woods alight, miss?’ Sam asked indignantly. ’Nor ever failed to lose your temper either, if I suggested you would,’ I answered. So Sam grinned and felt better, and made a long arm for the kettle, and brewed tea, and cut up bread and cream, and we had it in the Hickley Woods, as we’ve had it millions of times together. It was just the same. Whenever I had finished my slice, Sam put another on my plate, with mountains of cream and jam on it. At the third I remarked,— ’Sam, there really are limits.’ ’Yes, but you ain’t reached them yet, miss; four’s yours.’ ’Do you think you ought to speak to me like that, now I am married and have a daughter, Sam?’ ’He gets you muddled up with the daughter, I expect, same as I do,’ remarked Ross, ’only the Gidger is so much more sober and serious-minded than you’re ever likely to be.’ ’Four,’ I called out; ’limit’s reached, Sam.’ ’Well, there isn’t any more cream, anyway,’ said Sam, which, of course, was the one and only reason why we stopped in Hickley Woods. ’I begin to feel better,’ observed my brother. ’Why don’t I have enough to eat at lunch, Meg, I do at breakfast?’ ’I see to your breakfast,’ said Sam, ’and I’d see you had a good lunch if only I was allowed down.’ ’Well, you aren’t,’ said my brother, ’so that’s that, and I should think it would be better manners if you saw we had a good tea when we’re up. Pass the cake. Here, you eat the little chaps, I’ll have the plum.’ So Sam ate all the small cakes with sugar on top, and Fitzbattleaxe got the cream tin to lick out. He went right inside and stuck, and had to be lugged out by the tail. Then we shoved the table back and sat round the fire, and talked about the old days. At seven o’clock Nannie looked round the door. She was promptly hauled in and sat on Ross’s knee. ’Sam,’ she scolded, ’why do you keep them out so late? I really shall have to tell your father to wallop you. I’ve often threatened to, I really will to-night.’ ’Let’s run her down the passage, Sam, for cheek,’ said Ross, and they were just about to do it when Brown suddenly got up and said,— ’Want a bath, sir?’ and Nannie said, ’Will you wear your black again, ma’am?’ and, of course, it was that wretched S.P. come to clear away the tea. The smell under her nose was rather worse than usual, and the picnic broke up hurriedly. I felt as if I had been having tea with my brother’s man-servant, and Ross had been nursing one of the maids. Oh, I do loathe that woman! It was a most unfortunate dinner to-night, like one of those you get at Aunt Amelia’s. There didn’t seem to be anything solid to eat. At the end Sam handed Ross sardines on toast. ’What a thundering lot of hors d’oeuvres we seem to be having to-night, when’s the dinner coming?’ ’Savoury, sir,’ said Sam.