The Toy River 



spring, and beneath it, over the brown carpet, were 

 spread rugs of snowdrops, primroses, and daffodils 

 and bluebells. . . . This little patch of Spring 

 Paradise lies between the top of the nut-walk and 

 the spruce tree, which was given a mate so that 

 it should not feel out of it in the company of 

 strange trees. 



Not to have the wood and garden meeting too 

 abruptly, Forsythia and Weigela and tree lupins 

 were planted in groups on the hither side of the 

 birches, and the Forsythia, bursting into bloom in the 

 early spring, prepared the pine trees for all that 

 they should look down on in the succeeding months. 



Near the Forsythias a poor little cherry tree, 

 who had been half shrivelled all his life in the 

 shrubbery, was given a home and a comfortable 

 bed of good mould. 



That done, the work of construction began in 

 earnest. 



The winding bed of the river was dug out and 

 over the bank it fell into a wide pond, which, when 

 I think of it, becomes a small ocean. It is about 

 twenty-five feet by twenty, and irregular in shape. 

 In a little pool above it stands a terra-cotta model 

 of the Dolphin Boy of Verrocchio, which, as all the 

 world knows, is in the courtyard of the Palazzo 

 Vecchio in Florence. My rival quarrels with the 



149 



