We found the Exeter artist here before us, and I walked off with him at once, leaving the women to themselves. Otherwise I should certainly have burst, I believe; it is not healthy to refrain from bad language too long. However, all the agonies of picnic had to be gone through,--lunch in a ditch, cold, clammy food, forced conversation, and all the rest of it. Certainly that picnic was a failure; even Miss Virginia was subdued. When the feeding was done, I went off with Willoughby, the artist, again. I don't know what the women did with themselves, I am sure. As I had foretold, the weather had changed; there had been one cold shower already, and the clouds were piling up in the sky, threatening a wet, bleak, and windy afternoon. I knew how it would be, perfectly well, before we started, but no one would heed me. CECILIA EVESHAM _Tuesday evening_ This will be a long story to tell. On Monday morning Mrs. MacGill was very lively, perhaps wakened up by the explosion of the previous night. She came down to breakfast, and was persuaded by the Pomeroys to undertake an expedition to Widdington-in-the-Wolds, an outlying hamlet famous for an old church. 'It is long since I have lunched out of doors, Mrs. Pomeroy,' she said, 'but the doctor has so strongly recommended carriage exercise and fresh air to me, that I dare say on such a very fine morning I might make the attempt, if you are thinking of it.' Mrs. Pomeroy had been made to think of it by the fair Virginia, as I well knew; for the expedition was to be carried out in Sir Archibald's motor. 'One should always make an effort to see all places of interest in a neighbourhood,' Mrs. Pomeroy observed, with the sigh of the conscientious American sightseer, and Mrs. MacGill assented. My heart sank. Fancy visiting places of interest in the company of Mrs. MacGill! But, as Browning has it, 'Never the hour and the place and the loved one all together!' I have noticed the curious, indomitable tendency of tiresome people to collect and reappear in these exquisite places most favoured by nature; more suited, it would seem, for angel visitants than for the flat-footed multitude: but I digress. The fact remained that it was in close company with Mrs. MacGill that I was to visit the solitudes of Dartmoor,--Mrs. MacGill in a bead-trimmed mantle, a bonnet ornamented with purple velvet pansies, and an eis-wool shawl tied round her throat. I was to drive her in the pony cart; even her fears were not aroused by the dejected appearance of Greytoria as that noble animal was led up to the door. 'I am glad to see that the horse does not look spirited,' she said; 'for though you say you are so well accustomed to driving, I always prefer a coachman.' With a quick twitch of the reins I raised Greytoria's drooping nose from the dust. She seemed surprised, but ambled off in the indicated direction.