n
impulses, and its own quiet anarchy. There you forget that sky of ours
across whose face some tyrant drives our few docile seasons in
conventional order.

I think the Dog David in his own way shared the dream that leads
wayfarers through the Enchanted Forest. When he came out with Sarah
Brown under the tasselled arch of Travellers' Joy that crosses the end
of the Green Ride, he was all shining and dewy with adventure, and his
tail was upright, as though he were pretending that it carried a flag.

On an abrupt hill in the middle of an enormous green meadow a Castle
stood, just as Richard had predicted. It was To Let, and was not looking
its best. Some man of enterprise, taking advantage of its forlorn
condition, had glued an advertisement upon its donjon keep. You could
almost have measured that advertisement in acres; it recommended a face
cream, and represented a lady with a face of horrible size, whose
naturally immaculate complexion was marred by the rivets and loopholes
of the donjon keep itself, which protruded in rather a distressing way.

Oak trees stood round the foot of that pale hill, and the general effect
was rather that of parsley round a ham.

Between two oaks Sarah Brown, following directions, found the beginning
of the Daisified Path. There were not only daisies all over the path but
real violets on either side of it. The daisies looked one in the face,
but the violets did not, because they had morbidly bad manners. Still of
course manners are very small change and count for very little; the
violet, being an artist, is entitled to any manners it likes, while the
daisy has no temperament whatever, and no excuse for eccentricity.
Grasshoppers tatted industriously and impartially among the daisies and
the violets.

Here outside the forest there was weather again, and the weather was
more promising than generous. It continued to promise all day without
exactly explaining what its promise was, and without achieving any
special fulfilment. Fine silver lines of sunlight were ruled at a steep
angle across a grey slate view.

At the gate of Higgins Farm, Sarah Brown was a little disconcerted to
find a small dragon. It was coiled round a tree beside the clipped box
archway. It was not a very fine specimen, being of a brownish-green
colour, and having lost the tip of one wing. Its spine was serrated,
especially deeply between its shoulder blades, where it could raise a
sort of crest if angered or excited.