At length the long expected, ardently desired, eventful Saturday came. The picnickers were to assemble at the parsonage. And by five o’clock in the morning, Erminie, whom you know to be the very soul of kindness, had a comfortable breakfast prepared for the whole party, who were all on hand by a quarter past five. By six o’clock four ambulances and a baggage wagon, all borrowed from the quartermaster’s department, were in attendance to convey the whole party with all their stores to High street, Georgetown, where they were to take the boat, and where also the band of music and the colored waiters, cook and chambermaid were to meet them. Many hands make labor light, ’tis said; and so the young men, having breakfasted to their satisfaction on Erminie’s strong coffee, fried chickens, broiled ham, rice cakes and rolls, set to work with a will and soon loaded the baggage wagon with their stores. There were about thirty ladies and gentlemen comprising this picnic party, and they expected to be gone but twelve hours; but their stores were enough to feed three hundred people for the same time. When the last package was put into the baggage wagon, the gentlemen assisted the ladies into the ambulances, and followed them there: and the train started—Erminie standing in the door and looking after them, smiling and waving adieu. The sun had not yet risen, but the clearness of the dark blue sky at the zenith, and the bright red flush of the Eastern horizon surely promised a fine day. The horses were fresh of course, and travelled at a fine exhilarating rate. And so great was the glee of the picnic party, that they could scarcely refrain from breaking into song, even there in the streets. They were only enabled to restrain themselves by thinking how they would sing when once free of the city and town. An hour’s rapid jolting brought them to the lock in Georgetown, where the little canal steamboat Gadfly, with the Union flag flying, lay puffing and blowing as with impatience to receive them. Their colored band of musicians and their colored servants were standing on the deck waiting for them. The party quickly alighted from their ambulances, and went on board the boat. The servants speedily unloaded the baggage wagon, and transferred the stores to the deck. And just as the sun arose, the band of music struck up Hail Columbia, and the little steamer blew her shrill signal whistle, and started for up the country. Past the useful and necessary, but excessively ugly warehouses, past the lumber yards and fish market, past the Aqueduct Bridge and the suburban grog-shops, steamed the little Gadfly, until she was well free of the town and its suburbs, and in a comparatively quiet country, with the narrow tow path and the broad river on the south, and the narrow road and rocky precipice on the north.