ked slowly along the lane leading to
the cricket ground. Jim, on the other side of Mrs. Anderson, tall and
handsome in his flannels, with his white hat pulled over his eyes,
discoursed cheerfully of school matches, and promised them something
worth seeing if young Wally got going with the bat--conversation which
did not interest Cecil, who turned it as speedily as might be to
matters more to his taste, whereat Jim grew silent, listening with a
smile hovering on his well-cut mouth to society doing in the city, told
with a view to impressing his hearers with a sense of the narrator's
own important share therein. Once Mrs. Anderson met Jim's eye in a
brief glance, and reflected the smile momentarily. Behind them, Norah,
Wally, and the little doctor kept up a flow of chatter which Wally
described as "quite idiotic and awfully comfortable!" The party arrived
at the cricket ground on very good terms with itself.

The ground boasted no pavilion save a shed used for the preparation of
afternoon tea--a building of which the extreme heat made it almost
possible to boil the kettle without lighting a fire! Naturally, no one
used it for purposes of watching the play, but there was a row of
wattle trees along one side of the ground, and seats placed in their
shade made an excellent natural grand stand. Here the non-players
betook themselves, while the doctor and the two boys went off to the
spot where already most of the other players were gathered--a lean-to
under a huge gum-tree, used as a dressing-room by most of the
combatants, a number of whom arrived on horseback from long distances.
The Billabong boys had changed at the hotel, after putting up their
horses, and before repairing to the Andersons', so that they had no
dressing to do--which was more than fortunate for them, since the
lean-to was so thick with men, boys, valises, discarded garments,
leggings and boots, that it resembled a hive in a strong state of
disorganization.

Finally, the men were ready; a somewhat motley crowd--not more than
seven or eight in flannels, while the remainder were in ordinary dress,
with occasionally riding breeches and leggings to be seen, and not a
few football jerseys. The Mulgoa men, on being mustered, were found to
be a man short, while Cunjee had one to the good. So Murty O'Toole, to
his intense disgust, was solemnly handed over to Mulgoa. Then Dr.
Anderson, who captained Cunjee, won the toss, and Murty took the field
along with his new