“I think this is the most delightful season for a picnic excursion of this sort, for really the summer is as much too hot as the winter is too cold for an outdoor party of pleasure. What do you think, Mr. Billingcoo?” inquired Elfie of the exquisite, who was standing by her side, as she gazed on the beautiful scenery, and basked in the genial sunshine. “I think you are quite wight, Mith Fielding, and I quite agwee with you. It ith a gweat pity Mith Wothenthal could not be induthed to join uth.” “Isn’t it now! And she would have prevented me from coming if she could have done so! The idea of any one imagining danger in this excursion! I wonder where the danger is to come from! Here is a line of picket guards on one side of us and the river on the other. I should like to know how the guerrillas, even if they were in the neighborhood, could pass either. I wish they would for my part! I should enjoy a smart skirmish with Monck and his men! Heigh-ho! there is no such good luck. Our picnic excursion is going to be just as tame a party of pleasure as though we were in the pipinest times of peace. I tell you, Mr. Billingcoo, as far as my experience goes, this war’s a sell, like most other things in life.” “Weally now? you don’t mean it!” “I do. Here it has been going on for more than three years, and I have been living all this time at what they call ‘the seat of war,’ and I haven’t seen one great battle or even one little skirmish yet!” grumbled Elfie. “And do you weally with to witneth an engagement, Mith Fielding?” “I really do.” “How would an engagement thealed with a wedding wing do, in lack of an engagement with the enemy?” lisped the exquisite, caressing his moustache. “If you like to talk rubbish, Mr. Billingcoo, there are some young ladies at the other end of the boat who will listen to you with the utmost patience all day long,” said Elfie, coldly. “Weally, now? Ith that tho? But thuppothe I pwefer your company?” “Then you will have to talk sense or be silent.” “Mith Fielding, you are cwuel.” “Mr. Billingcoo, you are absurd!” “Tho I’ve heard. I wonder if it ith weally twue. I will go and athk my grandmamma,” said the young gentleman, coolly playing with the tea-rose in his button-hole, and sauntering off to join the lively old lady, and leaving Elfie to wonder whether she had not got the worst of it in the word fencing. So the boat glided along, on that delightful morning, through the wild and picturesque scenery of the Upper Potomac. And our excursionists, notwithstanding that they were on a party of pleasure, really enjoyed themselves. It was yet early in the day, when they reached the Great Falls of the Potomac, where the mighty river, rushing on between huge precipices, clothed with evergreen woods, falls into a vast basin, or cauldron, where, among great, jagged rocks, it roars and foams in frightful eddies and whirlpools.