Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/262

 tomed feet followed to its logical climax—a deep depression scooped out under the sharp, down-pointed iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent pressure of small bodies. The fence had lost its shiny blackness by now and the grass grew rank and untended around the mouth of the gap. Wriggling through, Caroline straightened herself and strolled unconcerned toward the castle, not so near her now. Soon she reached a newly rolled tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed beside a little summer-house, impatient for the start; an iridescent fountain tossed two gleaming balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly real, dazzled her, fairly. But it was like the court of the Sleeping Beauty—no one came or called.

At length, wandering on, she came upon a gardener in a neat gray livery, clipping with a large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet edge of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the gardeners in that ageless chronicle of Alice that Caroline smiled approvingly upon him.

"You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she said regally.