The Wonderful Garden

MP3 Audio CD. The Wonderful Garden

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING


It was Caroline’s birthday, and she had had some very pleasant
presents. There was a blotting-book of blue leather (at least, it
looked like leather), with pink and purple roses painted on it,
from her younger sister Charlotte; and a paint-box—from her brother
Charles—as good as new.

‘I’ve hardly used it at all,’ he said, ‘and it’s much nicer than
anything I could have bought you with my own money, and I’ve wiped all
the paints clean.’

‘It’s lovely,’ said Caroline; ‘and the beautiful brushes, too!’

‘Real fitch,’ said Charles proudly. ‘They’ve got points like needles.’

‘Just like,’ said Caroline, putting them one after the other into her
mouth, and then holding them up to the light.

Besides the paint-box and the blotting-book, a tin-lined case had come
from India, with a set of carved chess-men from father, and from mother
some red and blue scarves, and, most glorious of imaginable gifts, a
leopard-skin.

‘They will brighten the play-room a little,’ said mother in her letter.
And they did.