seem to have no beginning and no ending, but to indulge this feeling, the boy with the stick, whose whacks, regular as a flail on a threshing-floor, fall upon your animal's hide, must be left behind: there is little romance in these darkly-shaded, flower-starred lanes to the tune of such music. We have a few mishaps by the way. Amberley is painfully thin, so is her beast, and their bones do not agree, so every now and then she slips noiselessly over his head and glides into the ditch or dusty road. We get used to it after a bit, so does she, and takes it as a matter of course. Dolly's steed walks into a turnstile and is with some difficulty disentangled. The fry have, to our great relief, long ago succeeded in goading their asses into a trot, and have vanished amid clouds of dust, closely followed by their attendant sprites, yelling with delight at the spirit their several protégés evince. At Alice's request our party of beaters has fallen behind, so we pace silently along the dim green lanes, meeting neither man nor horse; it is all as hushed, as still, and as solitary as an uninhabited island.
Lothfully we turn homeward at last, and are met at the house door by mother with the intelligence that the governor is coming to-morrow. Our jocund laughter ceases, we all dismount anyhow, and go indoors to sit down under the shock of the intelligence which (though we know it must arrive at some time or other) comes upon us like an ice-cold shower-bath. We all seem to have forgotten our days of bondage during this past fortnight. Farewell, dolce-far-niente days! We did not make half enough of you while you lasted; and now you are gone, and we shall never get any at all like you again! Farewell, social breakfasts, leisurely dinners, pleasant strolls, and general ease of body and soul! Farewell, donkeys, crabs, shrimps, rocks, seaweed, early walks, and natural conversation!
Now that those happy days are gone, I become aware that Jack and I did not half fill them. We might have got into so much
