The Happy Garden 



peat, and the pine-log wall, and the stones of the 

 waterless waterfall, the kind of beast to be invited 

 was easy to decide. 



Six lizards were ordered from Gamages. 



Four were let loose in the peat garden, and two 

 in the rock garden over beyond the hedge of flower- 

 ing shrubs. They were eighteen inches long and 

 brilliant green in colour. Three of them took 

 possession of various crannies under the rocks ; 

 one was last seen among the peas at the farthest 

 extremity of the kitchen garden, and the rest ">are 

 not," as the Bible says. 



Those who are left seem to have so many 

 household duties to perform in the morning that 

 they never appear until the long shafts of the late 

 afternoon sun fall across the garden, and from four- 

 thirty onwards it is regularly part of the day's 

 programme to hunt the lizards. . . . 



When bog-bean was fetched from the lake in 

 the woods for the toy lake, unwittingly there was 

 brought with it frog-spawn, and, one morning, it 

 was seen that the water was black with tadpoles 

 enough, if they lived, to stock the Caspian Sea with 

 frogs. 



Strange insects appeared, and, though the water 

 comes from a tap, it 'seems to be inexhaustively 

 fruitful. 



162 



