An Enchanted Garden

“No,” said Alix, “that’s not a good plan at all. It’s perfectly stupid. If you’ve no better ideas than that, Rafe, we needn’t talk about it any more.” Rafe looked and felt very snubbed indeed. He was ten, she was nine. But she generally took the lead; not always, as I daresay you will see when you hear more about them, but generally. They were a nice little pair, and they were constantly together, at lessons, at play, at everything. This was a convenient arrangement, for they were a good deal younger than the other brothers and sisters of the family, and what Rafe would have been without Alix, or Alix without Rafe, it would be difficult to imagine. But there is not much use in thinking over about might-have-beens, or would-have-beens, unless to make us more thankful for what is. So it is enough to say that as things really were, they were very happy children. Still they had their troubles, and it was one of these they were discussing this lovely spring morning, when they were sitting under their favourite tree—a magnificent ilex in the garden, at one corner of the great lawn which was one of the beauties of their home.