At the bottom of Mrs. Ramshorn's garden was a deep sunk fence, which
allowed a large meadow, a fragment of what had once been the
manor-park, to belong, so far as the eye was concerned, to the
garden. Nor was this all, for in the sunk fence was a door with a
little tunnel, by which they could pass at once from the garden to
the meadow. So, the day being wonderfully fine, Bascombe proposed to
his cousin a walk in the park, the close-paling of which, with a
small door in it, whereto Mrs. Ramshorn had the privilege of a key,
was visible on the other side of the meadow. The two keys had but to
be fetched from the house, and in a few minutes they were in the
park. The turf was dry, the air was still, and although the woods
were very silent, and looked mournfully bare, the grass drew nearer
to the roots of the trees, and the sunshine filled them with streaks
of gold, blending lovelily with the bright green of the moss that
patched the older stems. Neither horses nor dogs say to themselves,
I suppose, that the sunshine makes them glad, yet both are happier,
after the rules of equine and canine existence, on a bright day:
neither Helen nor George could have understood a poem of Keats--not
to say Wordsworth--(I do not mean they would not have fancied they
did)--and yet the soul of nature that dwelt in these common shows
did not altogether fail of influence upon them.

"I wonder what the birds do with themselves all the winter," said
Helen.

"Eat berries, and make the best of it," answered George.

"I mean what becomes of them all. We see so few of them."