IV
THE PICNIC
It was Delia Dart who had suggested our Arbour Day picnic. “Let's have some fun Arbour Day,” she said.
We had never thought of Arbour Day in that light. Exercises, though they presented the open advantage of escape from the school grind, were no special fun. Fun was something much more intimate and intangible, definite and mysterious, casual and thrilling—and other anomalies.
“Doing what?” we demanded.
“Oh,” said Delia, restlessly, “go off somewheres. And eat things. And do something to tell about and make their eyes stick out.”
We were not old enough really to have observed this formula for adventure. Hitherto we had always gone merely because we went. Yet all three motives appealed to us. And events fostered our faint intention. At the
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