As I stood and watched the last row of geraniums being put in the soil, I was joined by Bess and Mouse. "Oh, mum!" Bess told me, "Mouse has been growling and growling at something behind the ivy. If it had been at night, I should say she had met a devil or ogre. Every minute she was with Nana and me, she got crosser and crosser; and see, her nose is quite red and bleeding, just like Hals' when he tumbled downstairs. Could it be a real robber?" and Bess's eyes opened wide. "No," I answered, "I don't think it could be a robber; but let's go and see." So we started off across the gravel. Mouse ran on ahead, as if anxious to show us something. Suddenly she stopped with a whimper. I followed on, jumped down the crypt, and, peering behind the ivy leaves, soon discovered the cause of my dog's excitement and displeasure. I found half covered up with dead leaves and rolled tightly into a ball of prickles, a poor little hedgehog. "For shame, Mouse!" I cried, and called her off. For Mouse, at the sight of the poor little beast, growled angrily, and wished once more to go for her antagonist. "Better to kill un'," said Burbidge, who had arrived on the scene. "Hedgehogs baint good for naught. They be milk-suckers, and death on the squire's game." For like most country-folks, Burbidge's hand was against hedgehogs. Burbidge had in his hand a rake, and was about to strike the poor little prickly creature, but I interposed. [Sidenote: MY SANCTUARY] "They do no harm. Besides, this is my sanctuary," I said. "In the Abbey Church no bird or beast may be harmed." Burbidge walked away growling, "Varmint should be killed anywhere." Then Bess and I went and inspected the little ball of spikes. "See, Bess," I said, "how it defends itself. All the winter this hedgehog has slept amongst a bed of dead ivy leaves, and so has passed long months. But now that summer has returned it will walk about, and at nights he will crop the grass, and eat insects." Mouse looked abashed at my lavishing notice on a hedgehog, and jumped up on a bank of thyme and watched intently what I was doing. Great Danes are remarkably sensitive dogs, and the mildest rebuke is often sufficient to make them miserable for long spells. A friend of mine, who had a very large one, said, "I never dared do more than whip its kennel. As a puppy, that was punishment enough." So I spoke gently to Mouse, and said, "You must never hurt hedgehogs again." At this, Mouse gravely descended from her heights, sat down by my side, and inspected the hedgehog, and I felt certain she would never hurt one again. Then I said to Bess that perhaps there were some little hedgehogs not far off, funny little creatures, born with little, almost soft, prickles; and I told the child how useful they were in a garden. How they feed on slugs and insects, and how, when introduced in a kitchen, they would even eat black beetles.