I can imagine the excitement we women would make of an election if we should ever get into politics. Would we not croquet our adversaries' balls, and make stunning split-shots in parties, and wire ourselves artfully behind wickets, and do all sorts of perplexing things? I confess if the excitement should get to be half as great as in playing croquet, I should tremble to think of it. Well, it was some excitement at all events to play against each other, he and I. Didn't I seek out his ball, didn't I pursue it, beat it back from wickets, come on it with most surprising and unexpected shots? Sophie fought with desperation on the other side, and at last they seemed to have carried the day, there was but one stroke wanting to put them out; they had killed Sydney at the stake and banished me to the farthest extremity of the ground. Mamma always said I had the genius for emergencies, and if you'll believe me I struck quite across the ground and hit Sophie's ball and sent it out, and then I took _his_ back to make my two last wickets with, and finally with an imposing _coup de théâtre_ I croqueted him to the other end of the ground, and went out amid thunders of applause. He took it with great presence of mind, knelt down and laid the mallet handsomely at my feet, and professed to deliver himself captive, and I imposed it on him as a task to write a ballad descriptive of the encounter. So he was shut up for about half an hour in the library, and came out with a very fine and funny ballad in Chevy Chase measure describing our exploits, which was read under the trees, and cheered and encored in the liveliest manner possible. On the whole, Mr. Henderson may be said to have had quite a society success yesterday, as I heard him very much admired, and the Elmores overwhelmed him with pressing invitations to call, to come to their soirées, etc., etc. You see these Elmores have everything money can buy, and so they are distracted to be literary, or at least to have literary people in their train, and they have always been wanting to get Henderson and Jim Fellows to their receptions. So I heard Mrs. Elmore overwhelming him with compliments on his poem in a way that quite amused me, for I knew enough of him to know exactly how all this seemed to him. He is of all persons one of the most difficult to flatter, and has the keenest sense of the ridiculous; and Mrs. Elmore's style is as if one should empty a bushel basket of peaches or grapes on your head instead of passing the fruit dish.