CHAPTER XXI7. 



THE IVY. 



Two winters of singular mildness had led me gt? 

 far to forget the general characteristics of that 

 dreary season, that when the customary blight fell r 

 somewhat abruptly, on the vegetable world, it 

 startled me to find my garden metamorphosed into 

 a desert. The tall dahlias stood, full-leaved as 

 before ; but the verdant robe of yesterday had 

 been changed into gloomy blackness, and stems 

 that lately seemed to support some perennial shrub, 

 were indebted only to the stakes to which we had 

 bound them for the upright position they still 

 maintained. The China rose-trees, with which 

 my garden abounds, presented a less forlorn aspect, 

 because their evergreen mantle was proof against 

 the power of frost ; but their numerous buds, love- 

 ly and fresh when the setting sun-beam last linger- 

 ed among them, had drooped their delicate heads 

 in death. I walked on, marking as I passed, two 

 little flowers of the lowly heart's ease in untarnish- 

 ed beauty, smiling at the foot of one of these lofty 



