e Gardens is the two tombstones of Walter
Stephen Matthews and Phoebe Phelps. They stand together at the spot
where the parishes of Westminster St. Mary's is said to meet the parish
of Paddington. Here Peter found the two babes, who had fallen unnoticed
from their perambulators, Phoebe aged thirteen months and Walter
probably still younger, for Peter seems to have felt a delicacy about
putting any age on his stone. They lie side by side, and the simple
inscriptions read

+-----------+ +-----------+
| | | |
| W | | 13a. |
| | | P.P. |
| St. M | | 1841 |
| | | |
+-----------+ +-----------+

David sometimes places white flowers on these two innocent graves.

But how strange for parents, when they hurry into the Gardens at the
opening of the gates looking for their lost one, to find the sweetest
little tombstone instead. I do hope that Peter is not too ready with his
spade. It is all rather sad.

XIX. An Interloper

David and I had a tremendous adventure. It was this, he passed the night
with me. We had often talked of it as a possible thing, and at last Mary
consented to our having it.

The adventure began with David's coming to me at the unwonted hour of
six P.M., carrying what looked like a packet of sandwiches, but proved
to be his requisites for the night done up in a neat paper parcel. We
were both so excited that, at the moment of greeting, neither of us
could be apposite to the occasion in words, so we communicated our
feelings by signs; as thus, David half sat down in a place where there
was no chair, which is his favourite preparation for being emphatic, and
is borrowed, I think, from the frogs, and we then made the extraordinary
faces which mean, "What a tremendous adventure!"

We were to do all the important things precisely as they are done every
evening at his own home, and so I am in a puzzle to know how it was such
an adventure to David. But I have now said enough to show you what an
adventure it was to me.

For a little while we played with my two medals, and, with the delicacy
of a sleeping companion, David abstained on this occasion from asking
why one of them was not a Victoria Cross. He is very troubled because I
never won the Victoria Cross, for it lowers his status in the Garden