On the whole I do not know that I regret that accident I had with Mary Ann. It is true that there are times when I am a little disposed to wish that she were not quite so good a manager; now and then every man likes to call his soul his own. On the other hand, she is well qualified to protect me from the rest of the family. She will keep them at bay. Because it is beginning to dawn on me that, singlehanded, she is more than a match for them all. Which is just as well. If she had been like me they would have rent us limb from limb. As it is, unless I am mistaken, some of the rending will be on our side. And they know it! P.S.--The cards are out for the wedding. It is to take place on Tuesday fortnight. We are going for our honeymoon to Italy and the South of France. A second cousin of Mary Ann's is in the Cook's Tours line. He has given us free passes all the way to the end of our journey, and all the way back again; and coupons for free board and lodging at the hotel. It's a wedding present. So that, as Mary Ann says, our honeymoon need cost us practically nothing. Besides which we can always sell the coupons and railway passes which we don't use. Nothing could be more delightful. A SUBSTITUTE. THE STORY OF MY LAST CRICKET-MATCH. CHAPTER I. I AM APPOINTED CAPTAIN. I have some idea of cricket--not much, perhaps, but I certainly have some. I was not in the 'Varsity team, nor near it; but I played in the Freshman's match, and provided myself with spectacles. I was nearly in the school team once. That was when I carried my bat for forty-five. I must own that my performance was a surprise to everyone--and to myself among the rest. But as I never repeated it--or anything like it--they left me, very wisely, out of the eleven. Thus it will be seen that, from a cricketing point of view, I did not, even in my best days, come up to first-rate form; and my best days were, reckoning from last summer, quite fifteen years ago. During those fifteen years I do not remember once handling a bat, far less hitting at a cricket-ball with one; and yet, in this state of unpreparedness, I had the presumption last summer to captain a team, and to lead them on--well, not to victory but to disgrace. It's a fact. The match was Storwell _v_. Latchmere. Storwell was _my_ team; and as I do not think a more remarkable match was ever known in the whole annals of cricketing history, I here venture to report it.