On the other side of the house, and dividing it from level fields, were the kitchen-garden and orchard.  In springtime you might have imagined the latter to be a grove of singing trees, bearing song for fruit:  in autumn, had you seen it when the sun was low, glinting through leaves and gilding apples and stem, you would have been reminded of the garden of the Hesperides.

Below the fields lay a broad river—­in summer, languid and clear; in winter, turbid and full.  The child often wondered (as soon as she could wonder) if, when it was lying so tranquil under the summer clouds, it was thinking of the frolic it would have with the great blocks of ice in the winter; whether it loved best the rush and struggle of the floods or the quiet of low water; and, above all, whither it was going.

The homely faces and bent, ungainly forms of the old nurse and her husband harmonized well with the mellow gloom about them; and the infant Nellie completed the scene, like the spot of sunlight in the foreground of a picture by Rembrandt.

Now, Nellie inherited her father’s active disposition, and, left to her own amusement, her occupations were many and various.  At three years of age she was turned loose in the orchard, with three blind puppies in lieu of toys.  Day by day she augmented her store, until she had two kittens, one little white pig with a curly tail, half a dozen soft piepies, one kid, and many inanimate articles, such as broken bottles, dishes, looking-glass and gay bits of calico.  When the little thing became sleepy she would toddle through the long grass to a corner, whence the river could be heard fretting against its banks, and lie there:  she said the water sang to her.  Finding that this was her favorite spot, the old nurse placed there a bright quilt for her to rest on, and in case she should awake hungry there stood a tin of milk hard by.  This was all the attention she received, unless the fairy of the well took her under her protection, but for that I cannot vouch.  Sometimes the puppies drank her milk before she awoke; then she went contentedly and ate green apples or ripe cherries.  Thus she lived and grew.

By the time Nellie was seven she had seen whole generations of pets pass away.  It was wonderful what knowledge she gained in this golden orchard.  She knew that piepies became chickens—­that they were killed and eaten; so death came into her world.  She knew that the kid grew into a big goat, and became very wicked, for he ran at her one day, throwing her to the ground and hurting her severely; so sin came into her world.  She saw innate depravity exemplified in the conduct of her innocent white pig, that would take to puddles and filth in spite of her gentle endeavors to restrain its wayward impulses.  Her puppies too bit each other, would quarrel over a bone, growl and get generally unmanageable.  None of her animals fulfilled the promise of their youth, and her care was returned with base ingratitude.  Even the little wrens bickered with the blue-birds, and showed their selfishness and jealousy in chasing them from the crumbs she impartially spread for all in common.