The Gap in the Fence

Think of the prettiest garden you have ever seen: a dear, old-fashioned, sunny garden, with masses of snapdragon and white lilies and carnations, and big yellow sunflowers; and damask roses, and white cluster roses, and sweet-smelling pink cabbage roses, and tiny yellow Scotch roses—in fact, every kind of rose you can think of, except modern ones. Then you can imagine the Vicarage garden at Haversham.
Not that all these flowers were out in August; indeed, the best of the roses and all the carnations were over by then, but the garden was still gay with lots of other kinds of flowers; and dear little twisting paths led the way under shady nut-trees to the kitchen garden and orchard, where apricots and plums turned golden and red in the sunshine, and the apple-trees were so laden that it seemed quite wonderful to think the branches did not break with the weight of the fruit.
The summer holidays were half over now, and already Mother had begun to look over the boys' socks and shirts for the next term at school, and the girls had begun to talk seriously of the holiday tasks, which had been lightheartedly put on one side when they first came home from school with eight long weeks of idleness before them.
They were all having tea under the big ash-tree on the lawn one very hot afternoon, when Philip announced a rather important piece of news.
Haver Grange is let, he said.
Is it? Oh, Philip, how do you know? Who told you? Who has taken it, and when are they coming? asked the others.
For over twelve years now the old Grange had been empty—except for a very deaf old man and his wife who lived there as caretakers. The present owner liked better to travel about the world than to live quietly in England, and his sons generally spent their holidays with him abroad.
But although the same old board had stood beside the big iron gates with This House to be Let Furnished written upon it in large white letters, no one had come to live in it, and the children had grown to look upon the Grange garden, with its moss-grown walks and weedy flower beds, as their especial property.