"Dumb innocents, often too cruelly treated,
May well for their patience find future reward."
Tupper.
Bonnie Berkshire! It is an expression we often make use of. Bonnie
Berks--bonnie even in winter, when the fields are robed in starry snow;
bonnie in spring-time, when the fields are rolling clouds of tenderest
green, when the young wheat is peeping through the brown earth, when
primroses cluster beneath the hedgerows, and everything is so gay and so
happy and hopeful that one's very soul soars heavenwards with the lark.
But Berks I thought never looked more bonnie than it did one lovely
autumn morning, when Ida and I and the dogs walked up the hill towards
our favourite seat in the old pine wood. It was bright and cool and
clear. The hedges alone were a sight, for blackthorn and brambles had
taken leave of their senses in summer-time, and gone trailing here and
climbing there, and playing all sorts of fantastic tricks, and now with
the autumn tints upon them, they formed the prettiest patches of light
and shade imaginable; and though few were the flowers that still peeped
through the green moss as if determined to see the last of the sunshine,
who could miss them with such gorgeous colour on thorn and tree? The
leaves were still on the trees; only whenever a light gust of wind swept
through the tall hedge with a sound like ocean shells, Ida and I were
quite lost for a time, in a shower as of scented yellow snow.
My niece put her soft little hand in mine, as she said--"You haven't
forgotten the manuscript, have you?"
"Oh! no," I said, smiling, "I haven't forgotten it."
"Because," she added, "I do like you to tell me a story when we are all
by ourselves."
"Thank you," said I, "but this story, Ida, is one I'm going to tell to
Aileen, because it is all about a Newfoundland dog."
"Oh! never mind," she cried, "Nero and I shall sit and listen, and it
will be all the same."
"Well, Ida," I said, when we were seated at last, "I shall call my
tale--"
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