lands.

There is the tiny walled inclosure above the stables at Shaws, once used
as a milking-yard, and just now a veritable posy of daisies, buttercups,
rich green grass, and apple-blossom. For in it there are six or seven
gnarled and lichen-grown old apple-trees, whose fruit is of small
account, but whose bloom is a gift sent straight from heaven to gladden
the hearts of men and beasts, birds and bees. The big double doors in
the ivy-grown flint wall of this inclosure stood wide open. Humming bees
sailed booming to and fro, like ships in a tropical trade-wind. And
through the lattice-work of the gray old apple-trees' branches (so
virginally clothed just now) clean English sunshine dappled all the
earth and grass in moving checkers of light and shade.

When the Nuthill party looked in through the gates of this delectable
pleasaunce they beheld in its midst the Lady Desdemona, gazing solemnly
down her long nose at the moving checkers of sunlight on the grass. Her
head was held low--the true bloodhound poise--and that position
exaggerated the remarkable wealth of velvety "wrinkle" with which her
forehead had been endowed by nature, after the selective breeding of
centuries. Low hung her golden dewlap over the grass at her feet; and
all across the satin blackness of her saddle intricately woven little
patterns of sunlight flicked back and forth as the breeze stirred the
branches overhead.

"There's all the wisdom and philosophy of the ancients in her face,"
said the Master, as the beautiful young bloodhound bitch winded them and
raised her head.

As a fact, her thought had been far from abstruse. She was merely