ELE aPEAUN SWAG AGE.

“TJ will go set the stools for our game,” said Robin, growing tired of the
smoke and heat. Soon he returned.

“ Are you never coming, Phoebe?” he cried; “father is come in with the
bishop, and a big, bearded man, who, he whispered to me, be the dean or
governor of the church. They say they will watch our tansy-cake contest and
see that it be fair.”

Phoebe’s head dropped like a blue-bell’s.

“It be hard to be stared at by strangers; one feels so—so shy and like
hiding in a corner, and to speak only “no, sir, and ‘yes, ma’am, in a low
voice.”

Robin laughed.

“Girls should be boys, then they would not feel that way,” he said.

“Run on, Phoebe,” said her aunt. “The good bishop will want to play
hand-ball with you; he doth so like it.”

Phoebe laid the pinafore one side, pushed back the curly locks that would
creep forward from her cap, and taking Robin’s hand, entered the broad hall in
which was to be the stool-ball contest. Her uncle and his guests were there.

“This is my cousin Phoebe,” said Robin gallantly —Phoebe dropped a
courtesy — “when she be not afeard of strangers, she be a right nice cousin to
have. Now she hath the shyness fallen upon her.”

Phoebe pinched Robin’s fingers, and looked down at her toes.

“So, ho!” said the jolly bishop ; “ Phoebe’s mother and I were great friends.
She would not shy away from me like this;” and he drew Phoebe to him.
“Now play your bout for the tansy, then we will all to hand-ball. I shall never
be too big nor old for hand-ball. So; to stool-ball!” 5

Robin made the opening play. Phoebe, reassured, took her turn, and soon
the ball was hard at work, dodging in and out under the stools.

The bishop watched and applauded. “There, you have it, Mistress Phoebe ;
no, Robin be ahead; trundle it a wee bit more to the right; now, Robin, be
your chance to crow; no, you missed it; now, you're lost. Well done for
Phoebe ; she hath won the tansy cake, fair and square ! ”

“ T don’t care,” said Robin; “I worked hard.”

“So you did,” said the church governor ; “and you have a good arm for it.”

“The lad never missed it before,” said Robin’s father; “but ladies before
gentlemen ; eh, Phoebe ?” and he patted her cheek.

“Now, let us to hand-ball,”’ cried the bishop ; and soon his “ mia est pila,”
“T have it,” above the noise of romp and tumble, told he had beaten.

Though the Paschal-taper was a large affair, weighing a hundred pounds, and
though it burned and spluttered like a jolly flambeau, Phoebe and Robin were
glad when the Easter Day service was over, and they could hurry home to the
cutting of the tansy cake. But here was delay again. It could not be touched
till after the bishop and the dean and all the guests who had come to dine had