The Rector of St. Marks

That open grassy spot in the dense shadow of the west woods was just

the place for a picnic, and it looked very bright and pleasant that

warm June afternoon, with the rustic table so fancifully arranged, the

camp stools scattered over the lawn, and the bouquets of flowers

depending from the trees.

Fanny Hetherton had given it her whole care, aided and abetted by Dr.

Bellamy, what time he could spare from Lucy, who, imbued with a mortal

fear of insects, seemed this day to gather scores of bugs and worms

upon her dress and hair, screaming with every worm and bringing the

doctor obediently to her aid.

"I'd stay at home, I think, if I was silly enough to be afraid of a

harmless caterpillar like that," Fanny had said, as with her own hands

she took from Lucy's curls and threw away a thousand-legged thing, the

very sight of which made poor Lucy shiver but did not send her to the

house.

She was too much interested and too eagerly expectant of what the

afternoon would bring, and so she perched herself upon the fence where

nothing but ants could molest her, and finished the bouquets which

Fanny hung upon the trees until the lower limbs seemed one mass of

blossoms and the air was filled with the sweet perfume.

Lucy was bewitchingly beautiful that afternoon in her dress of white,

her curls tied up with a blue ribbon, and her fair arms bare nearly to

the shoulders. Fanny, whose arms were neither plump nor white, had

expostulated with her cousin upon this style of dress, suggesting that

one as delicate as she could not fail to take a heavy cold when the

dews began to fall, but Lucy would not listen. Arthur Leighton had

told her once that he liked her with bare arms, and bare they should

be. She was bending every energy to please and captivate him, and a

cold was of no consequence provided she succeeded. So, like some

little fairy, she danced and flitted about, making fearful havoc with

Dr. Bellamy's wits and greatly vexing Fanny, who hailed with delight

the arrival of Mrs. Meredith and Anna. The latter was very pretty and

very becomingly attired in a light airy dress of blue, finished at the

throat and wrists with an edge of soft, fine lace. She, too, had

thought of Arthur in the making of her toilet, and it was for him that

the white rosebuds were placed in her heavy braids of hair and

fastened on her belt. She was very sorry that she had allowed herself

to be vexed with Lucy Harcourt for her familiarity with Mr. Leighton,

very hopeful that he had not observed it, and very certain now of his

preference for herself. She would be very gracious that afternoon, she

thought, and not one bit jealous of Lucy, though she called him Arthur

a hundred times.