uch the other night--more beautiful than he
had remembered, but like a mask, with something going on beneath it. A
young woman still--twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had
another lover by now. But at this subversive thought--for married women
should never love: once, even, had been too much--his instep rose, and
with it the dog Balthasar's head. The sagacious animal stood up and
looked into old Jolyon's face. 'Walk?' he seemed to say; and old Jolyon
answered: "Come on, old chap!"

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of
buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature, where
very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the level of
the lawn so that it might come up again on the level of the other lawn
and give the impression of irregularity, so important in horticulture.
Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar, who sometimes
found a mole there. Old Jolyon made a point of passing through it
because, though it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be,
some day, and he would think: 'I must get Varr to come down and look
at it; he's better than Beech.' For plants, like houses and human
complaints, required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by
snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one
and tell them the story of the little boy who said: 'Have plummers
got leggers, Mother? 'No, sonny.' 'Then darned if I haven't been and
swallowed a snileybob.' And when they skipped and clutched his hand,
thinking of the snileybob going down the little boy's 'red lane,' his
eyes would twinkle. Emerging from the fernery, he opened the wicket
gate, which just there led into the first field, a large and park-like
area, out of which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had been
carved. Old Jolyon avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made
down the hill towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two,
gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who takes
the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting
another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would show it to Holly
to-morrow, when 'his little sweet' had got over the upset which had
followed on her eating a tomato at lunch--her little arrangements were
very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone to school--his first term--Holly
was with him nearly all day long, and he missed her badly. He felt that
pain too,