the friends arrived. But they had the prophetic 

 eyes of poets, and when shod with galoshes they 

 plowed through the mud of their future terrace and 

 could imagine all the beauty we had intended; they 

 almost wept with gratitude and were perfectly docile 

 about breakfasting indoors! 



The terrace was eventually finished. I ought to 

 know because I laid thirty feet of stone wall* (which 

 I find out by the dictionary should be called a 

 " Ha-Ha," though I never suspected it had such a 

 mirthful name at that skinned thumb time) ; and we 

 planted it with hundreds of tulips, thousands of 

 hyacinths, a million crocuses, a trillion grass seed 

 and six Dorothy Perkins. The next year when the 

 dear friends came again, the terrace was too beautiful 

 to breakfast upon ; they could only stand at a respect- 

 ful distance, with bared heads,, while it was formally 

 dedicated. 



There also is the rose-garden annex surprise, 

 planned for the aforesaid partner's birthday, he 

 being prohibited for days from taking his " consti- 

 tutional " in that portion of our realm. When the 

 first of June arrived there stood — well, I won't say 

 exactly the number, but if I had been a prosaic 

 person I would have purchased just the same number 



202 



