Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/492

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ILLUSTRATED INTERVIEWS.
495

head, anxious to pipe his richest notes as an assurance of perfect happiness. And here was the tortoise on the grass and Minnie cuddled up in the doorway, blinking her tiny blue eyes at the sunbeams which were playfully striving to drive the peacefully disposed kitten out of her chosen corner. Whoever built Tower Cottage is hereby publicly thanked—its bricks and latticed windows form the prettiest little piece of architecture of its kind, and its site almost amounts to a paradise. Just look at its walls, up which the honeysuckle is creeping and the roses growing, the great blooming crimson fuchsias, and the paths edged with the greenest of box!—the blackberry bushes, and the hammocks hung in the shade between the boughs of the apple trees! You walk along the gravel paths of the garden, and every blossom on the branches peeping out from the grassy beds appears just to have come there of its own free will. You look around for the sign of a trowel or spade in vain. Nature seems to have been her own gardener, and planned and planted this floral nook. Then come a little farther to this turret built over the stables—the turret top with its alternate green boxes of cloves and nasturtiums, on which a swing seat has been put up. There you get the view.


As "Ophelia." (Hamlet.)
From a Photo. by Window & Grove.

"I have seen it many times before," said Miss Terry, "but I always find something more to look upon. Isn't it fair? I love space, and surely it is here. Look, right away across the fields—with the lambs playing about by the side of the winding rivulets—is the sea dotted with tiny vessels. To the left is Rye—it looks like a little hillock of houses, doesn't it?—Rye with its windmills—and every one of them is working. You remember Thackeray's unfinished 'Dennis Duval'? Dennis had a grandfather who was a barber and perruquier, and elder of the French Protestant Church at Winchelsea. Dennis himself often used to walk from this little town into Rye, perhaps past this very cottage! To my mind there is no more restful or more romantic spot anywhere than this. You can't even remember there exists such a thing as a theatre here! But I'll take you round the village this afternoon."


As "Beatrice." (Much Ado about Nothing.)
From a Photo. by Window & Grove.

Inside the house was all that was suggested by the outside—all was dainty and in miniature. One thing struck me—there was not a single picture of the great actress herself on the walls. Here were her friends, her two