She cut a glorious though short swath of four feet in length, happening on more tender grass, and having more strength than Prue, but here she, too, met her Waterloo, for the mower stood still, balking as effectually as all the donkeys in Ireland. "There's no use in your taking it, Rob," Wythie gasped, after turning hither and thither with no result. "If you cut a few feet it would be the most that you could do, and what difference would it make out of so much?" "You don't suppose I'll yield without striking a blow?" cried Roberta, darting at the lawn-mower as if she were no further removed from Samson than his great-granddaughter at most. "I have meant to cut this grass for ages--it shows that," she added, laughing. "Besides, it always matters a lot to me to be beaten. 'Men o' Harlech, in the hollow!'" Rob began singing the splendid Welsh battle-song as she in turn laid hold of the handle, as if she should not only succeed, but have breath to spare for a war-cry. Roberta was slender, taller that Oswyth, but her young muscles were strong and well-poised, and to whatever task she essayed she brought an excess of nerve-power that rarely failed to bear her to victory on the very crest of the wave. She attacked the tough grass now with such enthusiasm that the balking lawn-mower yielded to her as most things did, and ran along quite meekly for a little while. But then it stopped, and when it did stop not Cleopatra's galley, buried under centuries of Nile mud, was more motionless than was Aunt Azraella's lawn-mower. Rob pushed and pulled as both her sisters had pushed and pulled, losing her patience as she did so. "No good, Bobs," said Prue, laconically and a trifle maliciously, for the family only nicknamed Rob "Bobs," after Lord Roberts, Kipling's "Bobs Bahadur," in allusion to her indomitable pluck and generalship, and used the name in moments of triumph, of which this was scarcely one. Roberta pushed away her rebellious locks with the back of a slightly grimy hand. "If I only had a scythe!" she murmured. "No machine can get through this jungle--I feared as much. I'd mow it if I had a scythe, though!" "Now, Rob, you mustn't so much as think of one!" said Wythie, decidedly. "You know Mardy would be frantic if you were to swing one just once--you're so reckless! Promise you won't get one." "I solemnly pledge myself to abstain from all intoxicating and entirely inaccessible scythes," said Rob, holding up both hands. "Where in the world should I get one, Wythie?" "You always get anything you set your heart on," said Wythie, somewhat loosely, yet speaking from her knowledge of her sister. "Do I? Then it must be that I set my heart on very little," interjected Rob. "Would Mr. Flinders cut it?" suggested Prue.