"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.