THE JOY OF A GARDEN, 19 



parading your apartment, smiling Hebes, bearing cups 

 of " Liebig's Extract," " Brand's Essence," arrowroot, 

 jellies, and barleywater. Nor have you forgotten that 

 dreadful dream, in which, your temperature having 

 transcended your normal heat, you found yourself in 

 the scanty raiment of the night, and only a small red 

 flag in your hand, in the middle of the bull-ring at 

 Madrid, the centre of attraction to a countless 

 multitude of spectators, and a special object of 

 interest to a huge red bull, preparing with a preli- 

 minary whisk of his tail to charge down upon 

 you. 



At last "a change comes o'er the spirit of this 

 dream." " Things at the worst "will cease, or else 

 climb upward, to which they were before." You 

 retire from the perilous vocation of a matador into the 

 serenities of private life. There are signs of returning 

 health. Your food resumes its ancient flavour. The 

 odour of your mutton chop "nimbly and sweetly 

 recommends itself unto your outer senses ; " and, when 

 no one is looking, you gnaw the bone. You discover 

 merit in viands hitherto unknown or disdained 

 tapioca, sago, rice ground and sloppy. The batter- 

 pudding takes you back to the nursery, and to that 

 nurse who was so mean with the sugar, and the pan- 

 cakes recall those jubilant Shrove Tuesdays in the 

 servants' hall, when your small fingers dropped the 

 brass, numbered, ball into the wooden pillar, and 

 " raffling for oranges " was not forbidden by the law. 

 The fantastic figures and weird faces, which you have 

 watched in the flickering firelight, disappear from 

 curtain and screen, and that enormous bird which, 



