3-046-953 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The last croquet game of the season, 1872. 'Summer is pleasant, when the sun shines mildly, and the grassy lawn is a smooth carpet of living green. Croquet is very pleasant if one happens to be a young man or a young lady...with a gentle inclination to each other's company, with an equal degree of skill and taste for that pretty open-air pastime...Now that we look more attentively...we perceive that it is not the pleasure-ground of a private mansion, but the trimly-kept field at Wimbledon, belonging to the All England Croquet Club..Notwithstanding this comparative publicity of the situation, the players at so late a period of the season feel comfortably left to themselves...the comments of those..girls sitting under the penthouse cannot be heard at this distance. Miss Adeline, with uplifted mallet, is approaching her own ball, while she meditates the stroke which shall quietly send it through the nearest loop and leave it in a convenient place for passing the next stage when her turn comes round again...Young Mr. Frank, cigar in hand, affects to be watching her play in a careless manner; but, if we can interpret the look on his face, there is something else in his mind. He is just now thinking what he shall say to her at home in the evening'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.