Some boys were playing cricket in a field below.

In the evening we would go out to hear the crickets and the tree toads, to see the night breeze toss the leaves across the calm face of the moon, to be silenced in spirit by the peace of the stars.

"Bring me that cricket."

While some went wildly through the fields killing the crickets, others ran trenches and tried to drown them.

" "But you told me you didn't like cricket.

They do not mean cricket to me.

Or, if the air will not permit, Some still, removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm, To bless the doors from nightly harm.

And there the golden-belted bee Sang his sweet summer song, The crickets chirped there to the moon With steady note and strong; Till cold and silence wrapped them round When autumn nights grew long.

We ourselves know only too well how a thing good in itself as a means is apt to lose its value if raised into the place of an end;how the young mind is apt to elevate cricket, football, golf, into the main object of all human activity.

Thus, when he was twelve, having spent a good deal of his time one term at Eton enjoying cricket and boating, he found his tutor was not at all satisfied with his progress.

Oft flits the moth on filmy wings Into his solitary lair; Shrill evensong the cricket sings From some still shadow in her hair.

He takes part in the organisation of the cottage flower show; exerts himself earnestly about the allotments and the winter coal club, and endeavours to provide the younger people with amusements that do not lead to evilsupporting cricket and such games as may be played apart from gambling and liquor.

"He's giving up the cricket, of course, unless he finds that it happens to be a slack day in the City," Sarah replied.

From the appearance of the tree-top, at a little distance, you would expect nothing but lichens to drop from it, but your faith is rewarded by finding the ground strewn with spirited fruit,some of it, perhaps, collected at squirrel-holes, with the marks of their teeth by which they carried them,some containing a cricket or two silently feeding within, and some, especially in damp days, a shelless snail.

"I am very glad to see you looking so well, Redbud," she said, indicating a cricket at her feet, upon which Miss Redbud accordingly seated herself.

Meanwhile the baker's wife, who did not dare to touch a cricket herself, had gone into the bakehouse.

The Doctor knocked away the cricket, folded his wife's two shadowy hands into his own, and said: "Harrie we have no strength to waste, either of us, upon a scene; but I am sorry, and I love you.

Et voilà le cricket.

" Thus ending, he hastily lifted the wicket And out of the door turned the poor little cricket.

If he gains one, will some ticket, When his statue's built, Tell the gazer "'Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low,

The child stooped to pick up his wooden cricket, wavered, and was about to fall.

But old Baldo, strolling thoughtfully in the courtyard, caught a young cricket chirping in the grass between two paving-stones.

I regard the cricket that chirruped in the wall as an institution.

He understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him thrills of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear firm hand.

" I very nearly said, "Jiminy-cricket!"