the big table, as soon as ever we had got it nicely divided. into rooms according to where the legs came, it was certain to be dinner-time, and people put their feet into it. The nicest house we ever had was in an out-house. We had it, and kept it quite a secret for weeks. Then a new load of wood came and covered up everything, our best oystershell dinner-service and all.

Any one can see that it is really impossible to fancy anything when you are constantly interrupted. You can't have any fun out of a railway train stopping at stations when they take all your carriages to pieces because the chairs are wanted for tea, any more than you can play properly at Grace Darling in a life-boat, when they say the old cradle is too good to be knocked about in that way.

It was always the same. If we wanted to play at Thames tunnel under the beds, we were not allowed; and the day we did Aladdin in the store-closet, old Jane came and would put away the soap, just when Aladdin could not possibly have got the door of the cave open.

It was one day early in May - a very hot day for the time of year, which had made us rather cross when Sandy came in about four o'clock, smiling more broadly even than usual, and said to Richard and me: "I've got a fairy godmother, and she's given us a field.”

Sandy was very fond of eating, especially sweet things. He used to keep back things from meals to enjoy afterward, and he almost always had a piece of cake in his pocket. He brought a piece out now, and took a large mouthful, laughing at us with his eyes over the top of it.

"What's the good of a field?" said Richard.
"Splendid houses in it," said Sandy.

"I'm quite tired of fancying homes," said I. "It's no good; we always get turned out."

It's quite a new place," Sandy continued; "you've never been there," and he took a triumphant bite of the cake.

"How did you get there?" asked Richard.

"The fairy godmother showed me," was Sandy's reply. There is such a thing as nursery honor. We respected each other's pretendings, unless we were very cross. I was rather cross, but I didn't disbelieve in his fairy godmother. I only said: "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full," to snub him for making a secret about his field.

Sandy is very good tempered. He only laughed and said: "Come along. It's much cooler out now; the sun's going down."

He took us along Gipsy Lane. We had been there once or twice for walks, but not very often, for there was some horrid story about it which rather frightened us. I do not know what it was, but it was a horrid one. Still we had been there, and I knew it quite well. At the end of it there is a stile, by which you go into a field, and at the other end you get over another stile, and find yourself in the highroad.

“If this is our field, Sandy,” said I, when we got to the first stile, "I'm very sorry, but it really won't do. I know that many people come through it. We should never be quiet here."

Sandy laughed. He didn't speak and he didn't get over the stile; but he went through a gate close by it, lead ng into a little sort of by-lane that was all mud in winter and all cart-ruts in summer. I had never been through it, but I had seen hay and that sort of thing go in and come out of it.

It was a very There was no

He went on and we followed him. The ruts were very disagreeable to walk on, but presently he led us through a hole in the hedge, and we got into the field. bare-looking field, and went rather uphill. path, but Sandy walked away up it, and we went after him. There was another hedge at the top and a stile into it. It had very rough posts, one much longer than the other, and the cross step was gone, but there were two rails, and we all climbed over. When we got to the other side, Sandy leaned against the big post and gave a wave of his right hand, and said: "This is our field."

It sloped down a hill on one side, and the hedges round it were rather high, with awkward branches of hawthorn sticking out here and there without any leaves, and with the blossoms lying white, like snow, on the black twigs. There were cowslips all over the field, but they were thicker at the lower end, which was damp. The great heat of the day was over. The sun shone still, but it shone low down and made such splendid shadows that we all walked about with gray giants at our feet; and it made the bright green of the grass and the cowslips down below and the top of the hedge and Sandy's hair and everything in the sun and the mist behind the elder bush, which was out of the sun, so

yellow - so very yellow-that just for a minute I really believed about Sandy's godmother, and thought it was a story come true, and that everything was turned into gold.

But it was only for a minute; of course I knew that fairy tales were not true. It was a lovely field, and when we had put our hands to our eyes and had a good look at it, I said to Sandy: "I beg your pardon, Sandy, for telling you not to talk with your mouth full. It is the best field I have ever seen."

"Sit down," said Sandy, doing the honors; and we all sat down under the hedge.

"There are violets just behind us," he continued. "Can't you smell them? Whatever you do, don't tell anybody of those, or we can't keep our field to ourselves for a day. Look here." He had turned over on his face and Richard and I did the same, while Sandy fumbled among the bleached grass and brown leaves.

"Hyacinths!" said Richard, as Sandy displayed the green tops of them.

"As thick as peas," said Sandy. "This bank will be blue in a few weeks and fiddle-heads everywhere. There will be no end of ferns. Mayflowers to any extent they're only in bud yet; and there's a wren's nest in there." At this point he rolled suddenly over on his back and looked up.

"A lark," he explained. "There is one singing its head off. I say, Dick, this will be a good field for a kite, won't it? But, wait a bit."

After every fresh thing that Sandy showed us in "Our

Field," he always finished by saying, "Wait a bit"; and that was because there was always something else better

still

"There's a brook at the bottom there," he said, "with lots of fresh water shrimps. I wonder whether they would boil red. But, wait a bit. This hedge, you see, has got a very high bank and it's worn into kinds of ledges. I think we could play at 'shops' there but, wait a bit."

"It's almost too good, Sandy, dear!" said I, as we crossed the field to the cpposite hedge.

"The best is to come," said Sandy. "I've a very good mind not to let it out till to-morrow;" and to our distraction he sat down in the middle of the field, put his arms around his knees, as if he were playing at "Honey-pots," and rocked himself backward and forward with a face of brimming satisfaction.

Neither Richard nor I would have been so mean as to explore on our own account, when the field was Sandy's discovery, but we tried hard to persuade him to show us everything.

He had the most provoking way of laughing and holding his tongue, and he did that now, besides slowly turning all his pockets inside out into his hands and mumbling up the crumbs and odd currants, saying, "Guess!" between every mouthful.

When there was not a crumb left in the seams of his pockets, Sandy turned them back, and, jumping up, said: "One can tell a secret only once. It's a hollow oak! Come along."