What attention the young people had to spare was bestowed more on the style of the feast, and the good things which were to figure at it, than on the locality of the picnic. Oliver imagined this lack of concern in what was, in a measure, the object of the ten miles’ drive—the visit to a well-known ‘hanger,’ or high wooded bank, which sloped down to Buller’s Brook—might arise from the circumstance that the same bourn had formed the termination of the expedition ever since he could remember. The place was pretty and suitable enough, but there were other places, a little nearer, or a little farther off—an old deserted mansion, with a park open on certain conditions to the public; an ancient church, a treasure to archæologists; a bend of the Brook, famous for water-lilies; while variety was charming. He ventured to name a different halting-place, and was put down for a reason which proved unanswerable to his audience, and which he could not set aside. There was a rarely used barn near Finchhanger, and the owner placed it at the disposal of the company in case of rain. In a climate like ours, such a retreat with its possibilities of indoor games and dancing—even to no better music than impromptu whistling and singing—to while away the lagging hours, was what no wise man could ask his neighbours to despise. And the probability of seeking refuge in the barn was rather in the ascendancy this year; not because the skies were more inclined to weep than usual, but because Jack Dadd had struck out the brilliant improvement of taking down a detachment of the volunteer band on the top of his omnibus, and, as everybody knew, dancing on the grass was better in theory than practice.