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May 20^th

We had a picnic to-day. Miss Wakeham, who is Marjorie's maiden ant - mamma says when your ant isn't married she's called a maiden ant - knows how to drive a horse. And so she hired a pony-cart and took us children to a place called Freshfield, where there are some lovely woods, and we had our tea under the trees.

I do like Miss Wakeham, she is so jolly and never gets tight and looks shocked when something happens like Miss Griffin. While we were driving home in the cart, the pony made some rude noises, and Marjorie giggled and I thought Miss Wakeham would be cross. But she only pulled a rum face and said, 'Manners, manners!"

She told us horses often did that if you give them buns, which we had done after tea because it was such fun to feed the pony with our hands.

Just after we had finished tea I saw four little elves like the ones in my fairy tale book. They stared at us for a minute as if they thought us very funny, then off they ran. I nudged Miss Wakeham, and cried, " Look at the little elves." And she got excited and said, "Where, where?" but said she couldn't see them. Perhaps it's because she wears spectacles.

(Needless to say that was not the reason).

Marjorie didn't see them either, because just then she was behind a tree doing number 1. I wish we could go oftener to those woods and see some more little elves. They are smaller than the ones on the shore here at Birkdale, though just as rum looking.