the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see.
Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass,
and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was
cut yesterday--I suppose for rabbits or something, as she
kept on smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I
heard the noise of croquet balls, and looked out again, and
it was Charles Wilcox practising; they are keen on all
games. Presently he started sneezing and had to stop. Then
I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and
then, 'a-tissue, a-tissue': he has to stop too. Then Evie
comes out, and does some calisthenic exercises on a machine
that is tacked on to a greengage-tree--they put everything
to use--and then she says 'a-tissue,' and in she goes. And
finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still smelling
hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on you
because once you said that life is sometimes life and
sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish
t'other from which, and up to now I have always put that
down as 'Meg's clever nonsense.' But this morning, it really
does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me
enormously to watch the W's. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.

I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox
wore an [omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isn't
exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if you shut your eyes
it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if
you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a
great hedge of them over the lawn--magnificently tall, so
that they fall down in garlands, and nice and thin at the
bottom, so that you can see ducks through it and a cow.