The Palace in the Garden

"To one who has been long in city pent, / 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair / And open face of heaven. " / KEATS' _Sonnets_.

I suppose it is true, as older people say, that things very seldom turn out as one expects. Sometimes they are not so bad as one feels sure they will be -- and very often, or almost always, they are not so nice as one has thought they would be, if one has been fancying and picturing a great deal about them. And any way, they are never quite _what_ one expects. I am beginning to find this out for myself now -- looking back, I can recollect very few nice things in my life that have turned out as nice as I had imagined them. But of these few, Rosebuds was one, and that has made me always remember with particular distinctness all about our first acquaintance with the dear little place. I think I could tell _everything_ about our arrival there, exactly how each room looked, and what we had for tea -- oh, how hungry we were that first evening! and I seem to feel again the feeling of the snowy white sheets and the sort of faint hay-ey -- Tib said it was lavender -- scent in our beds when we got into them that first night -- very tired, but very happy.