CHAPTER XLI.
"YOU CAN BE DINAH'S FRIEND" Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more; My expectation wearies and shall cease; I will resign it now and be at peace: Yet never gave it o'er.
-- CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
Various complications prevented the Templeton-Strickland picnic, as Cedric termed it, from being speedily carried out, and it was not until the middle of May that a day was definitely fixed, and Cedric brought his sisters up to Waterloo, where Malcolm and Mr.Strickland met them.
The whole party were to be housed at the Priory, where they were to sleep two nights.

There were plenty of good bedrooms, Harry Strickland told them, and in a rough, homely fashion he could undertake that they should be comfortable.

He had already been down to the Priory to look after things, and to tell Mrs.Renshaw that she must find some temporary help.

He would have brought down a hamper of delicacies from Fortnum and Mason, but Cedric remonstrated with him and said his sisters would much prefer simple country fare.

And then Harry gave orders to his bailiff that the plumpest chickens and the fattest ducks were to be sacrificed, and new laid-eggs and cream served ad libitum.
Malcolm always looked back on those two days as the saddest and yet the most beautiful he had ever known.