Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno.djvu/252

224 "——and I think he has too lonely a life," she went on, with a gentle earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning. "Do get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can drive you over. It would be a pity to go by rail——there is so much pretty scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four."

" Oh, I'll persuade him to come!" I said with confidence——thinking "it would take all my powers of persuasion to keep him away!"

The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would induce him to call——either with me or without me——on the Earl and his daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to "wear out his welcome," he said: they had "seen enough of him for one while": and, when at last the day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go separately to the house——my intention being to arrive some time after him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting.