THE BATTLE ON THE SANDS. 
33 1 
her father’s brother, and his wife. Childless, 
they doted on her — indulged her whims, 
cherished her caprices, idolized her. Her 
frocks — her bangles — her shoes (made to 
measure in London, if you will believe me !) 
— the fittings of the apartment she called her 
own and named her boudoir — why, to dress 
her very hair a man (a man, mind !) came 
over twice a month from Exeter ! 
Imagine, then, the frown that came to the 
face of a Milly thus circumstanced when, 
a week before the picnic, Mrs. Tenfold 
announced that, by this and by that, cousin 
Hugh Falkener must unexpectedly make the 
first week of his holidays — as from Wednesday 
— beneath their roof. 
“ Wednesday ! ” cried Miss Milly, sighting 
at once the monstrous convention to which 
she must be subjected. “ Wednesday ! Why, 
Thursday is my picnic ! ” 
Her uncle and her aunt admitted rather 
apologetically that this was so. They had 
need to be more apologetic, more soothing, 
before the scene that followed was ended. 
“ Well, will he have to come ? ” Miss Milly 
demanded. “ Oh, dear ! He’ll spoil it all ! ” 
It were only needlessly harrowing to dwell 
on this. Let it at once be said that he did 
come, and that he did spoil it all — with the 
agency of Valentine Saxon England, who 
also came. 
For, “ There ! ” cried Milly, bursting 
home a few days later. “ There ! If you’ll 
believe it, there’s another boy coming to my 
picnic ! It’s very, very hard that I simply 
can't have a girls’ picnic when I want one. 
I do think it hard ! First there’s Hugh ; 
now Daffy England says she won’t come if 
she can’t bring her brother. Of course she 
must come — so there’s two boys for you ! 
Oh, I do think it’s very, very hard on me ! ” 
And she added on a sadly-bitter note : u I’d 
better call it a boys’ picnic at once. I 
believe there’ll be a million boys before it’s 
done ! ” 
The stress of her emotions must be per- 
mitted to excuse the pretty creature’s 
exaggeration. Her uncle and her aunt 
strove to soothe her with tea, with delicious 
cakes (pink-sugared and fresh from Poirre’s), 
with hot scones generous in butter — but the 
task was immense. 
4 ‘ It’s loo, too bad of Daffy England ! ” — 
“ No, I’ve got cream ! ” 
They gave her those hot scones. 
“ She simply lugs her brother everywhere ! ” 
They gave her those exquisite cakes fresh 
from Poirre’s. 
u He’s fat ; you know how fat he is ! ” 
There was a box of marrons glacis, and 
they gave her those. 
“ When he’s playing any game he breathes 
on you like fire ! Oh, I shudder when I 
think how hot he breathed on me in oranges- 
and-lemons at the Andersons’ ! ” 
And so on, and so on. Her adoring uncle 
and her doting aunt sat dumb before her. 
How solace a pretty creature whose complaint 
against a man is that he breathes ? 
Mr. Bulder — who was making a call — in 
his bovine way and with his high-pitched 
chuckle expostulated : “A man must breathe, 
Miss Milly. It is too much to ask that if, 
exerting himself lustily, he breathes hotly, he 
shall hold his breath. Such a man would 
certainly burst.” And he added, gathering 
the three remaining marrons glacis in his 
plump fingers, “ I had rather a man breathe 
flame itself than burst in pieces before my 
eyes.” 
Miss Milly crinkled the tender skin of her 
pretty young nose at him ; and for Hugh 
Falkener and Valentine Saxon England she 
had no more cordial greeting than the same 
signal of contempt and disgust when — the 
day of her picnic arrived — these two young 
gentlemen stood glumly aloof on the Tenfold 
lawn and watched the assembly of the party. 
Mr. Bulder did not mind — his mouth being 
comfortably stuffed with the marrons glacis ; 
nor for their part, when their turn arrived, 
did they. 
u Fools ! ” grunted Hugh Falkener, 
watching the throng of pretty creatures 
clustering about Miss Milly; and Valentine 
Saxon England grunted in response. Sullenish, 
stubborn of air, aloof from the crowd and 
despised by it (“ Beasts ” in the expression of 
Miss Yvonne de Ponthiere, who was Frenchish 
and loose for her years), the two stood 
naturally drawn together, though met now 
for the first occasion, what time the missies 
thronged and kissed in the emotional business 
of meeting. Hugh was thirteen, black-polled 
and swarthy of visage ; Valentine eleven, 
fair of hair and pink and white in the com- 
plexion. Fattish boys — dressed alike in 
flannel shirt and knickerbockers, jacket, 
sailor-knot tie that seemed tight to the point 
of choking, black stockings, shoes of brown 
canvas, straw hat. Ugly fellows beside the 
flummery of gay cottons, twills, nun’s- 
veilings, silks, upon which they scowled — of 
sleeky pig-tails, tossing curls, fuzzy mops ; 
of plumpish legs of white and brown ; of 
sashes, of laces, of ribbons ; of gay young 
faces, of chattering mouths, of clicking bangles, 
of paper parcels (birthday presents for darling 
