love for these quaint structures.

It was not only in the matter of fairy tales that Julie reigned
supreme in the nursery, she presided equally over our games and
amusements. In matters such as garden-plots, when she and our eldest
sister could each have one of the same size, they did so; but, when it
came to there being _one_ bower, devised under the bending branches of
a lilac bush, then the laws of seniority were disregarded, and it was
"Julie's Bower." Here, on benches made of narrow boards laid on
inverted flower-pots, we sat and listened to her stories; here was
kept the discarded dinner-bell, used at the funerals of our pet
animals, and which she introduced into "The Burial of the Linnet."[3]
Near the Bower we had a chapel, dedicated to St. Christopher, and a
sketch of it is still extant, which was drawn by our eldest sister,
who was the chief builder and caretaker of the shrine; hence started
the funeral processions, both of our pets and of the stray birds and
beasts we found unburied. In "Brothers of Pity"[4] Julie gave her hero
the same predilection for burying that we had indulged in.

[Footnote 3: "Verses for Children, and Songs for Music."]

[Footnote 4: "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men."]

She invented names for the spots that we most frequented in our walks,
such as "The Mermaid's Ford," and "St. Nicholas." The latter covered a
space including several fields and a clear stream, and over this
locality she certainly reigned supreme; our gathering of violets and
cowslips, or of hips and haws for jam, and our digging of earth-nuts
were limited by her orders. I do not think she ever attempted to
exercise her prerogative over the stream; I am sure that, whenever we