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heal, she sits weaving at her loom so needs 

 store of reeds for quills. Here at their 

 foot she stuck slips of all vines. They have 

 rooted, thriven lustily, and hang fair, rich 

 clusters all over and through the green, sigh- 

 ing wall. 



Part it lightly and step within , let the lithe, 

 stiff stems close all upon you a fairy prison 

 shutting you quite away from the guide who 

 stands outside scarce two yards away. 



Peaches, too, the garden boasts scatter- 

 ed trees of the Indian sort, sweet and fla- 

 vorous as love, bloodily red as murder. Yet 

 to see it but in season of fruit is to lose, far 

 and away, its best charm. Come, tread with 

 me its round under fair spring skies, when 

 peaches have dropped flower, grapes hang 

 i' the bud. Look up as you pass the gate. 

 Either hand a big mock-orange leans to kiss 

 its mate, arching overhead a bower of thick 

 white bloom. What curious, shrubby vine 

 climbs over it, dropping on every hand its 

 fine, long arms, so lightly graceful, so thick- 

 sown all their length with tiny leaf and 

 blossom ? " Youth - and - age willow," black 

 Daphne tells you, nodding sagely as' she 

 shows you that never a fresh purple flower 

 comes out but a faded one peers sorrow- 

 fully from the same foot-stalk. 



