xvi RIVERSIDE LETTERS 125 



To-day is lovely and bright, and I made a 

 careful inspection of my borders, marking out 

 places for some new introductions, and put- 

 ting in some bulbs that I had been prevented 

 from planting earlier by the flood. Here and 

 there I found sundry tennis balls that had 

 floated out from the hiding places in which 

 they had lain since the summer ; it is needless 

 to say that they had been nice new balls when 

 first lost. I looked into a little wooden hut, 

 that my youngest boy had built beneath the 

 walnut tree, and found that it had stood the 

 flood bravely, though the wall-paper and in- 

 ternal decorations had suffered considerably. 

 In this little hut in the summer holidays my 

 children used to have small parties, when 

 they would roast potatoes, fry kippers, and 

 make tea on a small stove, enjoying them- 

 selves greatly. An ugly bathing shed with a 

 corrugated iron roof, which our corporation 

 had put up on the river near here, did not 

 fare so well as my boy's structure, for it was 

 lifted bodily off its bearings, carried some 



