It was in this amiably Christian spirit that the representatives of Gloucestershire and Middlesex came to the tea-table. W. G., of course, presided and dispensed the tea to the manner born; and the supplies of strawberries and cream were so prodigious, indeed almost inexhaustible, that we were allowed to help ourselves. It may not be generally known that strawberries and cream are as essential to the cricket epicure as a hard wicket and a cloudless heaven. There is something in their mere flavour that smacks of glorious summer! We had just begun our depredations, when the Rector appeared, in a battered wideawake, with a long hoe in one hand, a cricket ball in the other, and a particularly stern countenance behind his perspiration. “Why, that’s the ball we lost last week!” cried Miss Grace. “Oh, thank you, father; it is very good of you to bring it to us. Quite new too. Only been played with twice.” “I am very gratified to find that you do recognise it, Laura,” said the Rector. “When I do happen to find them amongst the ruins, they are mostly made out to come there in the ordinary course of nature, like the frost and rain; as no one has the least idea, as a rule, how they could possibly have arrived by any other agency. Do you know that you have smashed my best auratum lily in the most wanton and outrageous manner?” “Indeed I don’t, father,” said Miss Grace, with a look of trouble. “You don’t think it could have been the hedgehog, do you, father?” “No, I don’t think it could have been the hedgehog, nor the peacock.” “It might have been the mongoose, don’t you think?” Miss Grace said; “they’re such awfully queer and ugly things.” “No, I don’t think it was the mongoose,” said her parent, “queer and ugly as they are. I think it was the cricket, and I propose to stop the cricket’s little game. It’s shameful!” “What, stop the cricket, sir!” His daughter’s tone was tragical. “Yes, stop the cricket. I’ll have no more of it. It’s simply massacred my tobacco plants. Rows upon rows I’ve tried to count and can’t, that have got their tops off and are pounded into snuff.” “I’m jolly sorry, father,” said Miss Grace. “But s’pose you have a cup of tea. You look so hot and fagged. A cup of tea, with lots of cream in, and a few of the best strawberries that you ever grew. Do you see that we’re enjoying ’em a fortnight later than anybody else?” “I also see,” said the Rector--not to be diverted by the tactful feminine--“that my tigridias are broken into little pieces. The more I think of what you’ve done, the more annoyed I feel!” “I am afraid that it’s my hard hitting that’s done the mischief, sir,” said the great batsman, who was going out with Stoddart, humbly. “Oh, no, Archie,” said his sister, “nothing of the sort. Now I come to think of it, I remember doing it myself. Look here, father, s’pose you stop my ‘tin’ till the damage has been paid for.”