toiled
with indifferent success at household tasks, and was grateful for having
a husband so absorbed in distant speculations that he was insensible of
the near discomfort of a badly-cooked dinner or a buttonless shirt.

The gardens of the houses opened on a lane which was a sort of
rubbish-shoot for the houses that gave upon it. Across the lane was a
row of stabling belonging to far more important houses than Wistaria
Terrace. Beyond the stables and stable yards were old gardens with shady
stretches of turf and forest trees enclosed within their walls. Beyond
the gardens rose the fine old-fashioned houses of the Mall, big Georgian
houses that looked in front across the roadway at the line of elm-trees
that bordered the canal. The green waters of the canal, winding placidly
through its green channel, with the elm-trees reflected greenly in its
green depths, had a suggestion of Holland.

The lane was something of an adventure to the children of Wistaria
Terrace. There, any day, you might see a coachman curry-combing his
satin-skinned horses, hissing between his teeth by way of encouragement,
after the time-honoured custom. Or you might see a load of hay lifted up
by a windlass into the loft above the stables. Or you might assist at
the washing of a carriage. Sometimes the gate at the farther side of the
stable was open, and a gardener would come through with a barrowful of
rubbish to add to the accumulation already in the lane.

Through the open gateway the children would catch glimpses of Fairyland.
A broad stretch of shining turf dappled with sun and shade. Tall
snapdragons and lilies and sweet-williams and phlox in the garden-beds.
A fruit tree or two, heavy with blossom or fruit.

Only old-fashioned people lived in the Mall nowadays, and the glimpses
the children caught of the owners of those terrestrial paradises fitted
in with the idea of fairyland. They were always old ladies and
gentlemen, and they were old-fashioned in their attire, but very
magnificent. There was one old lady who was the very Fairy Godmother of
the stories. She was the one who had the magnificent mulberry-tree in
her garden. One day in every year the children were called in to strip
the tree of its fruit; and that was a great day for Wistaria Terrace.

The children were allowed to bring basins to carry away what they could
not eat; and benevolent men-servants would ascend to the overweighted
boughs of the tree by ladders and pick the fruit