There I tethered our friend Juniper in a quiet little nook, and crossed the soft ground, without making any noise, to the place we used to call our little postern.

It looked so sad, compared with what it used to be, so desolate and brambled up and ruinous, that I scarcely should have known it, except for the gray pedestal of the prostrate dial we used to moralise about.

And the ground inside it, that was nice turf once, with the rill running down it that perhaps supplied the moat--all stony now, and overgrown, and tangled, with ugly-looking elder-bushes sprawling through the ivy.

To a painter it might have proved very attractive; but to me it seemed so dreary, and so sombre, and oppressive, that, although I am not sentimental, as you know, I actually turned away, to put my little visit off, until I should be in better spirits for it.

And that, my dear Maria, would in all probability have been never.
"But before I had time to begin my retreat, a very extraordinary sound, which I cannot describe by any word I know, reached my ears.