THE DINNER-PARTY. 
151 
miles from the village. The children were 
anxious to explore it; hut Mr. Crediton 
refused. “You must remember that we 
have to go home as well as to come out,” 
he said; “ and I venture to predict that you 
will all be tired enough by bedtime if we 
return the shortest way.” 
There was nothing to be said; for Mr. 
Crediton’s decisions were like the laws of the 
Medes and Persians. So the idea was given 
up, and the whole party set themselves to 
work to find amusement, of which there was 
no lack. One of the little girls produced a 
couple of dolls, and, with two or three of her * 
companions, constructed a neat little play¬ 
house in a niche of the bank, with carpet 
and sofas of the richest moss, a table of 
birch-bark, a dinner-service of the most 
sumptuous acorn-cups, and a soup-tureen of 
solid walnut-shell; and here they had a 
grand dinner-party. The boys waded into 
the stream, and climbed up on the rocks, 
and made the woods ring with their noise 
and loud laughter; while Mr. Crediton, sur¬ 
rounded by the elders of the party, busied 
himself in examining mosses under a mag¬ 
nifying-glass. At last Sidney reminded him 
