quet. When pretty young ladies wish for anything very much,
and the house is full of gentlemen, it goes hard, but that they get
the desire of their innocent hearts. So it was in this case. One fine
afternoon Alice wandered into the verandah and peeped for the hundredth
time into the box. "What beautiful things," she sighed, "and how hard it
is we can't have a game." "I know a patch of self-sown grass," sang one
of the party, "whereon we might play a game." "Where: oh, where?" we
asked, in eager chorus. "About two miles from this, near a deserted
shepherd's hut; it is as thick and soft as green velvet, and the sheep
keep it quite short." "Is the ground level?" we inquired. "As flat as
this table," was the satisfactory answer.

Of course we wanted to start immediately, but how were we to get the
croquet things there, to say nothing of the delightful excuse for tea
out of doors which immediately presented itself to my ever-thirsty mind.
A dray was suggested (carriages we had none; there being no roads for
them if we had possessed such vehicles); but alas, and alas! the proper
dray and driver and horse were all away, on an expedition up a distant
gulley getting out some brush-wood for fires. "There's Jack," some one
said, doubtfully. He had never even drawn a dray in his life, so far
as we knew, but at the same time we felt sure that when once Jack
understood what was required of him, he would do his best to help us to
get to our croquet ground. So we flew off to our different duties. Alice
to see that the balls, hoops, and mallets were all right in numbers and
colours, &c.; I to pack a large open basket with the materials for my
favourite form of dissipation--an out-door tea; and the gentlemen to
catch Jack and harness him into the cart.

Peals of laughter announced the setting forth of the expedition; and no
wonder! Inside the dray, which was a very light and crazy old affair,
was seated Alice on an empty flour-sack; by her side I crouched on
an old sugar bag, one of my arms keeping tight hold of my beloved
tea-basket with its jingling contents, whilst the other was desperately
clutching at the side of the dray. On a board across the front three
gentlemen were perched, each wanting to drive, exactly like so many
small children in a goat carriage, and like them, one holding the reins,
the other the whip, and the third giving good advice. In the shafts
stood poor shaggy old Jack, looking over his blinkers as much as to say,