delicious tone restful to the eye. Pomander Walk was, in fact, one of the prettiest nooks near London. It stood—and stands—on a little plot of ground projecting into the river. At the upper end it was cut off from the rest of the parish of Chiswick by Pomander Creek, which ran a long way inland and formed a sort of refuge for lazy barges, one of which was generally lying there with its great brown sail hanging loose to dry. Chiswick Parish Church was only a little way across the creek, but in order to get to it you had to walk very nearly a mile to the first bridge, and I am afraid Sir Peter Antrobus too often made that an excuse for not attending more than two services on a Sunday.

The little houses were built in the sober and staid style introduced during the reign of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Anne (now deceased). The architect had taken a slily humorous delight in making them miniature copies of much more pretentious town mansions. Each little house had its elaborate door with a shell-shaped lintel; each had its miniature front-garden, divided from the road-way by elaborate iron railings; and each had an ornate iron gate with link-extinguisher complete. You might have thought the houses were meant to be inhabited by very small Dukes, so stately were they in their tiny way. The ground-floor sitting-rooms all had bow-windows, and in each bow-window the occupants displayed their dearest treasures, generally under a glass globe. A glance at these would almost have been enough to tell you what manner of people their owners were. In the first, at the top corner of the crescent, stood the model of a man-of-war. The second displayed a silver cup with the arms of the City of London carefully turned outward for the passer-by to admire respectfully; the third showed a stuffed canary; the fourth was empty—I will tell you why later; the fifth presented a pinchbeck snuff-box, and in the sixth there was an untidy pile of old books.

In front of the crescent lay a delightful lawn, always admirably kept. Jim, Sir Peter Antrobus's man, mowed it regularly every Saturday afternoon. This lawn was protected on the river-side by a chain hanging from white posts. You never saw posts so white as those were, for every Saturday evening Jim—a very active old sailor in spite of his stiff leg—gave them a fresh coat of paint; he even went so far as to paint the chain as well.

JIM,—A VERY ACTIVE OLD SAILOR IN SPITE OF HIS STIFF LEG

In the lower corner of the lawn, and facing the bend of the river, stood what the inhabitants of the Walk called the Gazebo, a little shelter formed by a well-trimmed boxwood hedge, in which was a rustic seat. Sir Peter Antrobus and Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn would sit there on warm summer evenings and discuss the news of the day—or, let me rather say—the news of the day before yesterday; for the only journal they saw was a three days old "Globe" which Sir Peter's cousin sent him when he had done with it, and when he thought of it.

The great charm of the Gazebo was that it was sufficiently removed from the houses to ensure strict privacy: the ladies of the Walk, who shared fully in their sex's attribute of curiosity, could neither see nor hear what went on in its seclusion, and Sir Peter, who thought he was a woman-hater, was all the more fond of it on that account. In his own house he really could not talk at his ease, for his voice had, by long struggles against gales, acquired a tremendous carrying power; the party-wall was very thin, and his next-door neighbour, Mrs. Poskett, was—or, at least, so he imagined—always listening.

But the pride of the Walk was a great elm-tree standing in the centre of the lawn, and shading it delightfully. A very ancient tree, much older than the Walk: indeed, the crescent had, in a manner of speaking, been built round it. At its base Jim—there was really no limit to the things Jim could do—had built a comfortable seat which encircled its trunk, and this seat was the special prerogative of the ladies of the Walk when it was not occupied by Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn's numerous progeny.

I think I have told you all that is necessary about the external features of the Walk. You must see it with sympathetic eyes, if you are not to laugh at it: a little crescent of six very small old red-brick houses; in front of them, six tiny gardens full at all seasons of the year of bright old-fashioned flowers; then the highly ornamental railings and stately gates; then a red-brick pavement, or side-walk; then a broad path; and then the lawn, the elm-tree, and the Gazebo. Beyond this, the Thames, bearing great brown barges up to Richmond or down to Chelsea, according to the state of the tide; and the Parish Church of Chiswick, half buried in the foliage of stately trees, as a fitting background.

You could not find a quieter, more peaceful, or more forgotten spot near London in a month's search; for the only way into the Walk was along a very narrow path by the side of Pomander Creek: a path the children of Chiswick had been sternly forbidden to use, and which even their elders only attempted when they were more than usually sober, for fear of falling into the creek. So, although the Walk was nominally open to the public, it was not a thoroughfare, as you had to go out the same way as you went in. Strangers very seldom found their way to its precincts, and to all intents and purposes the lawn and the Gazebo had grown to be the private property of the inhabitants. As their rooms were extremely small, they made the lawn a sort of common drawing-room, where they entertained each other in a modest way with a dish of tea. After Mr. Basil Pringle and Madame Lachesnais and her daughter had come to live in the Walk there would even be music on the lawn. Madame would bring out her harp, Mr. Pringle his violin, and Marjolaine would sing quaint old French ditties.

I pity the unhappy stranger who stumbled into the Walk on such an occasion. The music would stop dead. Teacups would hang suspended half-way to expectant lips, and all eyes would be turned on the intruder with a stare which, if he had any marrow, would infallibly freeze it. Then to see Sir Peter throw his chest out, march up to the stranger and ask him what he wanted in a voice which masked a volcanic rage under courteous tones, was to behold a thing never to be forgotten. All the stranger could do was to stammer an apology and beat a retreat; but for days the memory of the unknown danger he had escaped would haunt him.

Sir Peter Antrobus—Admiral Sir Peter Antrobus—was not a person to be trifled with, I assure you. In the first place, he lived in the corner house as you entered the Walk. This gave him a sort of prescriptive right to sovereignty. You must also consider that he was an Admiral and that his gallantry had earned him a knighthood. He was, indeed, the only specimen of actual nobility the Walk had to show, though Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn could, by much pressure, be induced to admit, that if everyone had his rights and if lawyers were not such scoundrels, he himself—but he always broke off there and left you wondering what degree of the peerage he had claims to. But Sir Peter was undoubtedly a knight, and his title gave him the pas in all the Walk's social functions. Not only that, but the Walk looked up