"I have attended a great many," said Sibyl, "and the amount of work I have done in washing dishes and drawing water, casts anything but a pleasant reflection. Last year, when we had that mammoth picnic at Long Point, the gentlemen ordered twelve dozen plates, cups, saucers, goblets, spoons, and forks, to be sent out from a crockery store, in order to save trouble; and when I reached the Point in my fresh, white dress, there they were in crates, covered with straw, just as they stood in the warehouse. The guests were expected in half an hour. I was one of the managers, and, after standing a few moments in dismay, we rolled up our sleeves and began. Two gentlemen and two ladies, in gala attire, washing seventy-two dozen dishes in a violent hurry, with a limited supply of water and towels, on an August afternoon with the thermometer at eighty-eight. That is _my_ idea of a picnic!" The cousins laughed merrily at Sibyl's description, and Bessie said, "I have never been to a 'full-grown picnic,' as Gem calls it. My experience is confined to the days we used to spend out on the lake shore four or five years ago. We no sooner got there, than all the boys disappeared as if by magic, and we had to do all the work, make the fire, draw the water, and cook the dinner, Then the boys would appear on the scene with dripping hair, eat up everything on the table-cloth, like young bears, and off down the bank again until it was time to go home." "As you are all giving your ideas of a picnic," said Hugh, "_I_ will give you mine. Ride five miles in a jolting wagon in the hot sun, walk five more through tangled underbrush, arrive at the scene; pick up sticks one hour, try to make the fire burn and the kettle boil another hour; and finally sit down very uncomfortably on the ground, with burnt fingers and limp collar, to eat buttered pickles and vinegared bread, and drink muddy coffee; clear everything up, and ruin your clothes with grease-spots, wristbands hopelessly gone; sit down again under a tree, to hear the young lady you _don't_ like read poetry, while the one you do like goes off before your very eyes with your rival; devoured by mosquitoes, gnats and spiders; ice melted and water tepid; another fire to make, more bad coffee, more _grease spots_, and a silver spoon _lost_; hunt for the spoon until dark, and then find it was a mistake; walk back five miles through the underbrush, get into the wagon, perfectly exhausted with heat and fatigue; force yourself to sing until you are as hoarse as a frog, and reach home worn out, wrinkled, haggard, parched with thirst, famished for food, and utterly ruined as to common clothes. That is _my_ idea of a picnic!"