The maidens gave vent to their high spirits by chasing each other among the rocks, gathering shells and seaweed for the construction of those ephemeral little ornaments—­fair, but frail—­in which the sex delights, singing, laughing, quoting poetry, attitudinizing upon the peaks and ledges of the fine old boulders—­mossy and weedy and green with the wash of a thousand storms, worn into strange shapes, and stained with the multitudinous dyes of mineral oxidization—­and, in brief, behaved themselves with all the charming abandon that so well becomes young girls set free, by the entourage of a holiday ramble, from the buckram and clear-starch of social etiquette.

Meanwhile Ned and Charley smoked the pensive cigar of preparation in a sheltered corner, and gazed out seaward, dreaming and seeing nothing.

Erelong the breeze and the romp gave the young ladies not only a splendid color and sparkling eyes, but excellent appetites also.  The baskets and hampers were speedily unpacked, the table-cloth laid on a broad, flat stone, so used by generations of Brant House picnickers, and the party fell to.  Laura’s beautiful hair, a little disordered, swept her blooming cheek, and cast a pearly shadow upon her neck.  Her bright eyes glanced archly out from under her half-raised veil, and there was something inexpressibly naive in the freedom with which she ate, taking a bird’s wing in her fingers, and boldly attacking it with teeth as white and even as can be imagined.  Notwithstanding all the mawkish nonsense that has been put forth by sentimentalists concerning feminine eating, I hold that it is one of the nicest things in the world to see a pretty woman enjoying the creature comforts; and Byron himself, had he been one of this picnic party, would have been unable to resist the admiration that filled the souls of Burnham and Salsbury.  Hattie Chapman stormed the fortress of boned turkey with a gusto equal to that of Laura, and made highly successful raids upon certain outlying salads and jellies.  The young men were not in a very ravenous condition; they were, as I have said, a little nervous, and bent their energies principally to admiring the ladies and coquetting with pickled oysters.

When the repast was over, with much accompanying chat and laughter, Ned glanced significantly at Charley, and proposed to Laura that they should walk up the beach to a place where, he said, there were “some pretty rocks and things, you know.”  She consented, and they marched off.  Hattie also arose, and took her parasol, as if to follow, but Charley remained seated, tracing mysterious diagrams upon the table-cloth with his fork, and looked sublimely unconscious.

“Sha’n’t we walk, too?” Hattie asked.

“Oh, why, the fact is,” said he, hesitatingly, “I—­I sprained my ankle getting out of that confounded boat, so I don’t feel much like exercising just now.”

The young girl’s face expressed concern.