SRAMPtO-AMO6T6-THt^- I OSE .
 swimming past, when it pulled her along after she fell
 into the water without unloosing her hold, and she
 came laughing to the shore, towed along by the sheep,
 unconscious of the danger she had escaped. The old
 gardener, who was a looker-on, shouted to her to keep
 fast hold while he reached her, but she only laughed
 and nodded her head, while her wet hair was hanging
 all over her face and eyes, and as the old man told me,
 Wasn't a bit afraid, but wished she had had a longer
 ride." But she never did so again,
 Some days elapse after the washing to allow the
 fleeces to dry before the sheep are clipped, for ex-
 perienced breeders argue that the oil must return into
 the wool again, so that the shears may slip through
 it easily. Rare exercise was it for Christabel and her
 girlish companions to roll up and carry away the
 fleeces, and many a game of romps they had on the
 high-piled heaps of wool which were laid ready to thrust
 into the huge wrappers before being carted off to the
 wool-pack shed. It was wonderful how little time the
 old practical clippers took to shear a sheep clean, and
 then to see the alteration it made in the appearance of
 the sheep: those that looked like moving hillocks of
 wool before they were shorn, appearing comparatively
 slim and genteel after they had passed through the
 shearers' hands, illustrating the old proverb, which
 says, "Many who come out to seek wool go back shorn."
 This was another puzzle for the little lambs; for
if they had a difficulty in recognizing their own dams
after the washing, they bore no resemblance to their
former appearance when stripped of their fleeces; but
the lambs would sometimes run away from the ewes
until won back by the old familiar bleating, and even
then they were often some time before they appeared
satisfied.