OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



shaded / the very place for happy children, it would seem, 

 and for long hours of flower-picking gipsy teas and end- 

 less games. It was quite lost in the woods that banded 

 the property, away from intrusions of nurse or 

 governessand yet, how haunted! Never shall I for- 

 getI feel it now as I write the profound misery that 

 would seize upon me at the very entrance to the laughing 

 glade. 



I am not sure, however, that there was not a tangible 

 reason for this depression, connected with the disappearance 

 of a fondly-loved four-footed playfellow. A darling dog 

 he was: one of the jocose, high-spirited kind/ his open 

 mouth and hanging tongue seemed to show him a partaker 

 in human mirth, with a waggish humour all his own. <No 

 pun is intended !> He had a rough tangled coat, black and 

 white, a flag of a tail, flopping ears. He was the swiftest, 

 gayest, most romping creature that has ever shared the 

 play of children. We adored him. His name was Carlo. 

 I don't know of what breed he was, if of any. . . . Alas ! 

 he hunted the sheep! He disappeared! No one knew 

 what had become of him. We children never ascertained 

 anything, but there was a rumour a dark, untraceable, yet 

 most convincing rumour that somebody had seen the 

 small, rough corpse hanging from a tree-trunk, not far from 

 the Primrose dell. Was it not that, perhaps, which haunted 

 the dell for me ? 



We suspected the herd. A large, fat, round-faced, smiling 

 man, this / with an unctuous, creeping voice that seemed to 

 gurgle up like a slow oil-bubble from inner recesses of 

 obesity. A man who at intervals would remark, seeing 

 us grouped about our mother, " You've a lovely lot of 

 236 



