y wilderness beyond the
broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly
a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the
roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was
deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had
been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the
seaside even for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House
seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise.
For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations
are not rich.

[Illustration: That first glorious rush round the garden]

Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and
things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the
theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none
of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the
things or themselves--such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And
nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape--all straight
lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like
things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I
am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two
blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass
don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many
children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not
know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and
mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I
know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes,
too, but that is for quite different reasons.

The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well
that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so
from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered
with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the
most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and
when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different
from