The River Beulah flowed through Nontland, and it was bounded on the north by the Celestial Mountains; on the south by the red brick wall, where the big pears grew; on the west by the Rose of Sharon tree; and on the east by the pig-sty.  That last sounds something of a descent, but it wasn’t really a pig-sty, and I can’t think why it was called so, for, to my knowledge, it had never harboured anything but two innocent white Russian rabbits with pink eyes.  It was situated at the foot of the kitchen-garden, next door to the hen-houses; the roof, made of pavement flags, was easy to climb, and, sloping as it did to the top of the wall overlooking the high-road, was greatly prized by us as a watch-tower from which we could see the world go by.

To get into our Kingdom we knocked at the Wicket Gate, murmuring as we did so: 

  “El Dorado
   Yo he trovado,”

and it opened—­with a push.  We hadn’t an idea then, nor have I now, what the words meant.  We got them out of a book called The Spanish Brothers, and thought them splendidly mysterious.

Besides ourselves, and Nont, and the Russian rabbits, there was only one other denizen of our Kingdom—­a turkey with a broken leg, a lonely, lovable fowl which John, out of pity, raised to the peerage and the office of Prime Minister.  I have a vivid recollection of riding in hot haste on a rake to tell the King—­not in proper fairy fashion that the skies were fallen, but that Lord Turkey of Henhouse was dead.

John, I remember, always carried some fern seed in his trouser-pocket.  He said it made him invisible—­a delusion I loyally supported.  It seems to me the sun always shone in those days, the time was ever three o’clock in the afternoon, and faery lay just adown the road!

It has just occurred to me, and it is an awesome thought, that you must converse every day, and all day, in the German language.  I believe I have forgotten all I ever knew of German, though it isn’t so very long ago since I wrestled in tears and confused darkness of mind with that uncouth tongue.  Don’t forget your native tongue, and don’t dare write me a letter in German, or, like the Editor of The Spectator, I shall say, “This correspondence must now cease!”

Since last I wrote life has been one long changing of garments and moving from one show to another.  Tuesday was Viceroy’s Cup Day at the races, a very pretty sight.  One side of the ground was crowded by pretty women in lovely gowns, and on the other side the natives sat in their hundreds and chattered, not the drab-coloured crowd we produce, but gay and striking as a bed of tulips.

There are three stands—­one for the members of the Turf Club, one for the ordinary public, and one for the natives who can afford a seat.  The members of the Turf Club may be said to be the sheep; the others the goats.  It is more comfortable in every way to be a sheep.  You get a better seat and a comfortable tea in an enclosure, with the sight of the goats scrambling wildly for a little refreshment to keep you thankful, for in the heat and dust and glare even a sheep is apt to lose sight of its mercies.  I thought G. was the prettiest girl there.  She is always such a refreshing sight, pink and white and golden like a morning in May, and tall—­“like a king’s own daughter.”