em. The servants were
amusing themselves during the interval with skittles and nine-pins, so
that everybody of the party, high and low, old and young, were engaged;
and in that I consider consists the chief zest of a pic-nic of the sort.
Sometimes a pic-nic may take place at a spot of peculiar interest,
where the party may find abundant matter of amusement without games of
any sort; or in other instances people merely meet in a pretty spot, to
dine in a pleasant unrestrained way in the open air, and generally
manage to become better and more quickly acquainted than they can at a
formal dinner-party. The boys, however, were most interested in the
proposed pony races, and a general cry of "The race!--the race!--the
race!" rose among them. It was echoed by others, both ladies and
gentlemen, and all the ponies, and horses, and, we may say, four-legged
animals the party could muster, were brought forth. As the race was
entirely impromptu, no arrangements had before been made. It was first
settled that everything was to run. The larger riding-horses were to
have a longer distance to run, and were not to start so soon as the
others; the carriage-horses came next, then the ponies, then the
cart-horses, and lastly the donkeys. One very big, stout gentleman, who
pleaded that he was not fit to be a jockey, and that his horse would run
away with a lighter weight on him, undertook to clear the course. That
was settled. Then came the question as to who were to be the riders.

"All the boys, except a few of the little ones," cried a sporting
gentleman. "Of course they can all ride. Come up, youngsters. Mount--
mount! let us see what you can do. You must have your proper colours.
We can find scarfs and handkerchiefs enough to fasten round your caps."

No one liked to say that he could not ride. Much less did Ellis, though
he had only mounted a quiet pony's back a few times in his life: still
he thought that he could manage to stick on for a short distance, and
was unwilling to confess how little experience he had had.

"I congratulate you, Ellis," said Ernest, nodding to him when he saw him
mounted. "You seem to have got hold of a clever little animal. He'll
go, depend on that. If I had not my own little Mousey to ride, I should
like to have had that pony. He belongs to Mr Seagrave, does he? Oh!
he always has good animals. If you do not win, you'll be in one of the
first, I'm pretty certain of that." So Ernest ran