I also meet Vick, my little shivering, smooth, white terrier.

They both join me.
The one wriggles herself into the shape of a trembling comma, and, foolishly chasing herself, rolls over on her back, to demonstrate her joy at my advent.

The other says: "Come into the kitchen-garden, and see whether the apricot-flowers are out on the south wall." We pace along the broad and even gravel walk among the red cabbages and the sea-kale, basking in the sun, whose heat we feel undiminished by the influence of any bitter blast, in the prison of these four high walls, against which the long tree-branches are pinioned.

In one place, the pinioning has failed.

A long, flower-laden arm has burst from its bonds, and is dangling loosely down.