Oliver Constable was prompt in supporting the usual celebration of the day, and in proposing to make one of the company in either of the two omnibuses engaged to carry the pleasure-seekers to their place of entertainment. He discovered to his chagrin that the party consisted chiefly of young people. An American fashion was setting in, which caused Mr. and Mrs. Dadd, and Mrs. Polley, with their contemporaries, not to refuse their countenance altogether, but to withdraw to a considerable extent their presence from the gala. They found the annual excursion, on the whole, a little trying to people of mature years, and they were not impelled to make the sacrifice on their children’s account, since these worthy fathers and mothers were persuaded that their young people were perfectly able to take care of themselves at a picnic, and that to have their seniors looking on proved a restraint on the enjoyment of the juniors. Let the elderly people have their outing also, but let it be distinct and apart from that of the young people, whose limbs, wind, and hilarity were naturally so much more rampant. But Oliver made so great a stand against this innovation on the part of his fellow-townsmen, and so set his heart on the fathers and mothers accompanying their sons and daughters, that though old Dadd and Mrs. Polley did not know what to think of the young fellow’s urgency, they yielded, and even pressed Mr. Holland, the minister of four-fifths of the shopkeepers of Friarton, into the service, to accompany the excursionists and say grace at the picnic. It was much more difficult to convince Jack Dadd and ’Mily Polley that the revival of the presence of the elders was an advantage. ‘The guv’nor and his missus will only be in the way, and spoil sport; and what do we want with a feller in a white choker out of chapel? In fact, we have two of ’em; for Constable, though he means to be friendly, is a bit of a stick—all the worse, sometimes, that he don’t show his colours in his coat or his tie, or his hat,’ Jack grumbled and blustered; while ’Mily complained there would be no fun, and threatened not to go, but soon withdrew her threat. For the first time in a number of summers, Fan Constable announced her intention of being one of the pleasure party. It was a solemn concession to sisterly duty. Oliver was such a fool (with a folly akin to that of Henry, Earl of Morland, and not altogether removed from the madness of the Apostle Paul, when he became all things to all men,) that she could not trust him to spend a whole day in the fields with those riotous lads, and, above all, those bouncing or languishing girls, without the protection of her eye upon him and them. Ungrateful Oliver had some words with Fan on her going in the spirit in which she went. ‘If you can’t make yourself agreeable, Fan, and do as others do, but must stand aloof with what they call fine-lady airs, you had better stay away,’ said Oliver, with a man’s brutal frankness.