“Very likely,” said Miss McDonald; “no one sees himself as others see him, and probably the poet who expressed the desire to do so was simply attitudinizing.--[Robert Burns: 'O wha gift the Giftie gie us; to see o'rselves as others see us.' Ed.]--By the way, Mr. Burnett, you know there is one place of sentiment, religious to be sure, not far from here. I hope we can go some day to see the home of the 'Mountain Miller.'” “Yes, I know the place. It is beyond the river, up that steep road running into the sky, in the next adjoining hill town. I doubt if you find any one there who lays it much to heart. But you can see the mill.” “What is the Mountain Miller?” asked Evelyn. “A tract that, when I was a girl,” answered Miss McDonald, “used to be bound up with 'The Dairyman's Daughter' and 'The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.' It was the first thing that interested me in New England.” “Well,” said Philip, “it isn't much. Just a tract. But it was written by Parson Halleck, a great minister and a sort of Pope in this region for fifty years. It is, so far as I know, the only thing of his that remains.” This tractarian movement was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Mavick. “Good-morning, Mr. Burnett. I've been down to see Jenkins about his picnic wagon. Carries six, besides the driver and my man, and the hampers. So, you see, Miss Alice will have to go. We couldn't go rattling along half empty. I'll go up and see her this afternoon. So, that's settled. Now about the time and place. You are the director. Let's sit down and plan it out. It looks like good weather for a week.” “Miss McDonald says she wants to see the Mountain Miller,” said Philip, with a smile. “What's that? A monument like your Pulpit Rock?” “No, a tract about a miller.” “Ah, something religious. I never heard of it. Well, perhaps we had better begin with something secular, and work round to that.” So an excursion was arranged for the next day. And as Philip walked home, thinking how brilliant Evelyn had been in their little talk, he began to dramatize the excursion. All excursions are much alike, exhilarating in the outset, rarely up to expectation in the object, wearisome in the return; but, nevertheless, delightful in the memory, especially if attended with some hardship or slight disaster. To be free, in the open air, and for a day unconventional and irresponsible, is the sufficient justification of a country picnic; but its common attraction is in the opportunity for bringing young persons of the opposite sex into natural and unrestrained relations. To Philip it was the first time in his life that a picnic had ever seemed a defensible means of getting rid of a day.