ve access to strangers during the absence of the family. The lady
then told her they were friends of Lord and Lady John, but still the old
guardian of the place remained suspicious and obdurate; till, to her
surprise and discomfiture, it came out that the visitors to whom she had so
sturdily refused admission were no other than Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert walking incognito in the Park.

Just outside the Lodge the Crystal Palace on the height of Sydenham could
be seen glittering in the rays of the setting sun. In front of the house,
eastward, were two magnificent poplars, one 100 feet, the other about 96
feet high, rich and ample in foliage, and most delicately expressive of
every kind of wind and weather. They could be seen with a telescope from
Hindhead, about thirty miles south-west. Grand old oaks, of seven hundred
to a thousand years, grew near the house and made plentiful shade;
southwards the grass under them was scarcely visible in May for the
glorious carpet of wild hyacinths, all blue and purple in the chequered
sunlight. Nearly every oak had its name and place in the affection of young
minds. There were also many fine beech-trees in the grounds. On the western
slopes were masses of primroses and violets, also wild strawberries. West
and south, down the hill, was a wilderness, the delight of children,
untended and unspoiled, where birds of many kinds built their nests, where
squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, weasels, snakes, wood-pigeons, turtle-doves,
owls, and other life of the woods had never been driven out, and where
visitors hardly ever cared to penetrate. Outside, in Petersham Park, was a
picturesque thatched byre where the cows were milked. Petersham Park was
then quiet and secluded, before the time came for its invasion by London
school treats.

East of the house was a long lawn, secluded from the open Park by a
beautiful, wildly growing hedge of gorse, berberis, bramble, hawthorn, and
wild roses. Further north was a bowling-green, surrounded by hollies,
laburnums, lilacs, rhododendrons, and forest trees; at one end was a
rose-trellis and a raised flower garden. The effect of this bright flower
garden with its setting of green foliage and flowering shrubs, and majestic
old trees surrounding the whole, was very beautiful. At one end, shaded by
two cryptomereas, planted by our father--said by Sir Joseph Hooker to be
among the finest in England--was a long verandah where our mother often sat
in summer w