"Very beautiful to look at," replied Mina, "but I don't know whether I should quite like to live in it. I don't know a single little nook where I could sit with my knitting."
But such little nooks abounded all the more beautifully and sweeter in the garden, where the children found a new world of wonder. According to their ideas, derived from the garden at home, which was celebrated, not only in the village itself, but through the whole neighbourhood, they imagined, under the name of a garden, a beautiful smooth piece of ground, divided into accurately-formed vegetable-beds, which wore bordered and adorned with lovely flowers, and in the very middle of all a green painted garden-house covered with creepers. Here, however, it was quite different.
Adjoining the castle was "the garden in the pig-tail style," as Mrs. Walter said, with ornamental twisted borders, the paths strewn with bright gravel, and planted all about with box-trees clipped into the strangest shapes, balls, pyramids, and even the human form, and, in the middle of all, a fountain which threw up water almost higher than the one in the front. For a great distance also beyond the castle extended, too, what was called "the park," with shrubberies, in which stood wonderful statues; where, amidst lawns of fine turf, shone forth the most gloriously brilliant beds of flowers, where was a little lake, with its red and white painted little vessel, and a cottage built of tree-stems, in which sat an old hermit in a brown gown, with a white beard, and a large open book before him, who turned his head and lifted his spectacles when any one opened the door.
Mina, and even the courageous Fritz, ran away screaming at first, until at length, accustomed by degrees to the miracle, and assured by Mrs. Walter that the old man was only a painted figure, they took heart, though the machinery remained a great wonder to them.
There was many a charming little nook amongst the shrubs on the soft green sward in front of the lake, on which two old swans belonging to former times swam about, where the children could sit side by side and tell each other stories and fairy tales. Nor yet had they come to an end of the discoveries in the garden, nor yet had Fritz wholly completed the accurate description of the journey which he had promised to send his father.
The children had been accustomed to a simple, laborious life, therefore their holidays appeared to them a season of the purest enjoyment. Mina, brought up to very early rising, was every morning ready dressed, and put her head within her brother's little chamber to summon him, whilst he was yet generally asleep; and every morning Fritz asked her, "But, I say, Mina, isn't it a dream?" and she replied laughing, "No, it isn't a dream."
Amidst all the pleasure and the delight of their beautiful surroundings, they also endeavoured to do all they possibly could to be of use to Mrs. Dote. Fritz cut small firewood for her, and piled it up neatly in the kitchen; they both helped her to look after the little garden which she had for her own especial pleasure. Mina threaded her needle, which was not always easy for her old eyes to accomplish; and Mrs. Dote, on her part, taught her all kinds of beautiful stitches in needlework, and described to her the magnificent dresses which she made, and of which she had the care when she was lady's-maid.
"Ah! what good times the gentlefolks have!" sighed Mina; "when I think how my mother has to consider before she buys a cotton gown, and countesses have satin and velvet and silk gauze."
"Never trouble yourself about that, child," said Mrs. Walter, "there are often heavy hearts under the light gauzes and the shining silks. I was right glad over my lowly condition, when I came to understand thoroughly this high life."
"Yes, I must say," remarked Fritz, who was sitting at a side-table engaged over the history of his travels, "the porter below there seemed to me at first very high-bred and elegant; but if I had every day of my life to walk up and down in front of this beautiful castle——"