studding. The arrest of development in these shells is characteristic of
everything about the place. None of the improvements invented since the
hard times began have been added to Jocelyn's; lawntennis is still
unknown there; but there is a croquet-ground before the hotel, where the
short, tough grass is kept in tolerable order. The wickets are pretty
rusty, and it is usually the children who play; but toward the close of a
certain, afternoon a young lady was pushing the balls about there. She
seemed to be going over a game just played, and trying to trace the cause
of her failure. She made bad shots, and laughed at her blunders. Another
young lady drooped languidly on a bench at the side of the
croquet-ground, and followed her movements with indifference.

"I don't see how you did it, Louise," panted the player; "it's
astonishing how you beat me."

The lady on the bench made as if to answer, but ended by coughing
hoarsely.

"Oh, dear child!" cried the first, dropping her mallet, and running to
her. "You ought to have put on your shawl!" She lifted the knit shawl
lying beside her on the bench, and laid it across the other's shoulders,
and drew it close about her neck.

"Oh, don't!" said the other. "It chokes me to be bundled up so tight."
She shrugged the shawl down to her shoulders with a pretty petulance. "If
my chest's protected, that's all that's necessary." But she made no
motion to drape the outline which her neatly-fitted dress displayed, and
she did not move from her place, or look up at her anxious friend.

"Oh, but don't sit here, Louise," the latter pleaded, lingering near her.