then, at last the Garden of Sleep!

Two things, in those old days, I held in especial distrust:
gamekeepers and gardeners. Seeing, however, no baleful
apparitions of either nature, I pursued my way between rich
flower-beds, in search of the necessary Princess. Conditions
de<56>clared her presence patently as trumpets; without this
centre such surroundings could not exist. A pavilion, gold
topped, wreathed with lush jessamine, beckoned with a special
significance over close-set shrubs. There, if anywhere, She
should be enshrined. Instinct, and some knowledge of the habits
of princesses, triumphed; for (indeed) there She was! In no
tranced repose, however, but laughingly, struggling to disengage
her hand from the grasp of a grown-up man who occupied the marble
bench with her. (As to age, I suppose now that the two swung in
respective scales that pivoted on twenty. But children heed no
minor distinctions; to them, the inhabited world is composed of
the two main divisions: children and upgrown people; the latter
being in no way superior to the former--only hopelessly
different. These two, then, belonged to the grown-up section.)
I paused, thinking it strange they should prefer seclusion when
there were fish to be caught, and butterflies to hunt in the sun
outside; and as I cogitated thus, the grown-up man caught sight
of me.

"Hallo, sprat!" he said, with some abruptness, "where do you
spring from?"

"I came up the stream," I explained politely and comprehensively,
"and I was only looking for the Princess."