As a rule, the club picnics were cooperative affairs; but to-day the members, by special request, arrived empty-handed.  Mr. Paul Shaw, learning that Pauline’s turn was yet to come, had insisted on having a share in it.

“I am greatly interested in this club,” he had explained.  “I like results, and I think,” he glanced at Hilary’s bright happy face, “that the ‘S.  W. F. Club’ has achieved at least one very good result.”

And on the morning before the eventful
Friday, a hamper had arrived from New
York, the watching of the unpacking of which
had again transformed Patience, for the time,
from an interrogation to an exclamation point.

“It’s a beautiful hamper,” she explained to Towser.  “It truly is—­because father says, it’s the inner, not the outer, self that makes for real beauty, or ugliness; and it certainly was the inside of that hamper that counted.  I wish you were going, Towser.  See here, suppose you follow on kind of quietly to-morrow afternoon—­don’t show up too soon, and I guess I can manage it.”

Which piece of advice Towser must have understood.  At any rate, he acted upon it to the best of his ability, following the party at a discreet distance through the garden and down the road towards the lake; and only when the halt at the pier came, did he venture near, the most insinuating of dogs.

And so successfully did Patience manage it, that when the last boat-load pushed off from shore, Towser sat erect on the narrow bow seat, blandly surveying his fellow voyagers.  “He does so love picnics,” Patience explained to Mr. Dayre, “and this is the last particular one for the season.  I kind of thought he’d go along and I slipped in a little paper of bones.”

From the boat ahead came the chorus. 
“We’re out on the wide ocean sailing.”

“Not much!” Bob declared.  “I wish we
were—­the water’s quiet as a mill-pond this afternoon.”

For the great lake, appreciating perhaps the importance of the occasion, had of its many moods chosen to wear this afternoon its sweetest, most beguiling one, and lay, a broad stretch of sparkling, rippling water, between its curving shores.

Beyond, the range of mountains rose dark and somber against the cloud-flecked sky, their tops softened by the light haze that told of coming autumn.

And presently, from boat to boat, went the call, “We’re going to Port Edward!  Why didn’t we guess?”

“But that’s not in Winton,” Edna protested.

“Of it, if not in it,” Jack Ward assured them.

“Do you reckon you can show us anything new about that old fort, Paul Shaw?” Tracy demanded.  “Why, I could go all over it blindfolded.”

“Not to show the new—­to unfold the old,”
Pauline told him.

“That sounds like a quotation.”

“It is—­in substance,” Pauline looked across her shoulder to where Mr. Allen sat, imparting information to Harry Oram.