Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/191

 Tainter about it afterward; and I'll wager something handsome that old Deane will find himself left out of the next picnic. I'm sure, if he does, it will only serve him right for being so rude."

"I don't believe he'll mind it if he isn't invited," remarked Gertrude. "He dined with papa last night; and I heard him say that it was the dullest affair he ever was at in his life, and only fit for the 'companions of Ulysses.

"What did he mean?"

"I don't know. Something about General Grant, I suppose.—Candace, what are you laughing at?"

"Oh, nothing," said Cannie, composing her face as well as she could. A little old translation of the Odyssey had been among the books in the North Tolland library, and she was more "up" in the "companions of Ulysses" than the rest of the party.

"How different picnics now-a-days are from those which we used to have in Newport when I was a girl," remarked Mrs. Gray from