"It’s telling on him already, too," said Jane, feeling a sense of elation over the fact which she could not quite account for. "He has a better colour. I noticed it yesterday." "That was sunburn," declared Olive, skeptically. "He spent the afternoon lying on the ground with a book down by the hedge, right squarely in the hot August sun. I think it was ridiculous." "He’s lived in the house ever so much more than was good for him," Jane insisted, gently. "So does everybody in cities. My idea of happiness--one sort--is a day on my grandfather’s farm. It’s only about ten miles out, and we ’ve a plan. Should you, Murray, and Shirley, care to spend a day with us out there? A sort of picnic, you know. Down by the river there are the loveliest places you can imagine, and Peter says he ’ll take you fishing if you care for it." "Indeed I should, I ’m sure," agreed Olive, with real pleasure. She loved new sensations, and the notion of going fishing with Peter Bell appealed to her strongly. She was growing more and more to respect and admire Peter; in a way, it was true, in which she quite failed to appreciate his best qualities, but in which she responded, nevertheless, to those which his family would have rated as his second best. "Don’t forget the picnic," was Olive’s last word, as she set Jane down at her own door. "I shall begin to get an outing hat ready now." "If I should forget, Peter would remind me. It’s his plan," Jane reassured her--a fact which of itself pleased Olive, for she was confident that it meant his regard for her entertainment. If she had known, however, the whole plan was a plot of Peter’s for Murray’s diversion. "The fellow ’s worrying about something," Peter had said. "He’s pitching into the exercises I showed him, but his mind ’s counting against him. I know what he wants to build himself up for. He told me that if he had to be the family’s sole representative in the matter of sons for the next three years, he wanted to put up a better showing, and I ’m decidedly glad he takes it that way. I ’d hate myself to be five feet ten and weigh only one hundred and thirty. Let ’s take him--and the girls if you like--out for a day on Grandfather Bell’s farm. What do you say? Do you suppose we could make the thing acceptable to Miss Worthington Square?" After due consideration of the matter, and some consultation with her mother, Jane had enthusiastically agreed. Now, upon returning from the drive, she was able to tell Peter that Olive had accepted the invitation with alacrity. "What--fishing and all?" he laughed. "Really, I think better of her ladyship than ever for coming down to earth like that. The question is now, how to get them there without resorting to hay-wagons--a form of conveyance I judge Miss Olive would n’t deign to accept."