Читать книгу The Fairy Latchkey онлайн

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But as Philomène grew older, she gradually realised with sorrow that neither the green dwarfs nor Mrs Handy were anything more than a make-believe, and in her grief at having had to say good-bye to them, she turned for comfort to the pleasures of story-writing, and to the thought of the mysterious key-hole in the garden wall.

The garden of Sideview was flanked on three sides by a wall, and on the fourth by the back of the house. There was a lawn bordered by a path, and at the end farthest from the house there was a large strawberry bed. Flower-beds were laid out between the path and the wall, some young fruit-trees that never seemed to bear any fruit grew near the strawberry bed, and close to the house an iron staircase, with a pump at the foot of it, climbed to the level of a garden door that opened out of the schoolroom.

“I wish a fairy caretaker with a red cloak lived in our garden wall, and would tell me stories as she did to Mrs Molesworth’s children,” thought Philomène regretfully, “but then that was in the ‘Enchanted Garden,’ and I never did see a garden in all my life that looked less enchanted than ours. It is so flat, and there is no water in it, unless you count the pump, no pond or fountain, and it isn’t a bit neglected either, with the man coming twice a week to mow the grass.”