So Oswald presently remarked, when he had aimed at the stump she was aiming at, and hit it before she did, for though a fair shot for a lady, she takes a long time to get her eye in. "Mrs. Bax, we should like to do whatever _you_ like to do." This was real politeness and true too, as it happened, because by this time we could quite trust her not to want to do anything deeply duffing. "That's very nice of you," she replied, "but don't let me interfere with any plans of yours. My own idea was to pluck a waggonette from the nearest bush. I suppose they grow freely in these parts?" "There's one at the 'Ship,'" said Alice; "it costs seven-and-six to pluck it, just for going to the station." "Well, then! And to stuff our waggonette with lunch and drive over to Lynwood Castle, and eat it there." "A picnic!" fell in accents of joy from the lips of one and all. "We'll also boil the billy in the castle courtyard, and eat buns in the shadow of the keep." "Tea as well?" said H.O., "with buns? You can't be poor and needy any way, whatever your----" We hastily hushed him, stifling his murmurs with sand. "I always think," said Mrs. Bax dreamily, "that 'the more the merrier,' is peculiarly true of picnics. So I have arranged--always subject to your approval, of course--to meet your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Red House, there, and----" We drowned her conclusive remarks with a cheer. And Oswald, always willing to be of use, offered to go to the 'Ship' and see about the waggonette. I like horses and stable-yards, and the smell of hay and straw, and talking to ostlers and people like that. There turned out to be two horses belonging to the best waggonette, or you could have a one-horse one, much smaller, with the blue cloth of the cushions rather frayed, and mended here and there, and green in patches from age and exposition to the weather. Oswald told Mrs. Bax this, not concealing about how shabby the little one was, and she gloriously said-- "The pair by all means! We don't kill a pig every day!" "No, indeed," said Dora, but if "killing a pig" means having a lark, Mrs. Bax is as good a pig-killer as any I ever knew. It was splendid to drive (Oswald, on the box beside the driver, who had his best coat with the bright buttons) along the same roads that we had trodden as muddy pedestrinators, or travelled along behind Bates's donkey. It was a perfect day, as I said before. We were all clean and had our second-best things on. I think second-bests are much more comfy than first-bests. You feel equivalent to meeting any one, and have "a heart for any fate," as it says in the poetry-book, and yet you are not starched and booted and stiffened and tightened out of all human feelings.