76 A GARDEN OF PLEASURE 



away last winter, leaving a broad vacant 

 space, a space that is not bare, but full of 

 interest. Little incidents and details, un- 

 observed before, were plainly seen this 

 morning. There is a curious arrangement 

 of wood -bricks built in regular order 

 amongst the others. Worm-eaten and 

 decayed, they have weathered to the same 

 colour as the greyer of the bricks, and are 

 so inconspicuous as to pass usually unre- 

 marked. These wood-bricks must have 

 been devised for the more careful nailing 

 up of fruit trees. The fine new garden 

 walls of those days might not be disfigured 

 with nails ! some have fallen out, leaving 

 recesses convenient for wrens' and other 

 nests. Suddenly appeared a curved line of 

 bricks, set end-wise, showing where once 

 had been a low-browed narrow door-way, 

 bricked up long since. There is another 

 as low and narrow, faintly visible farther 

 down. Carlyle wrote of the days 'when 

 dresses were smaller and thoughts were 

 larger.' Certainly our modern door-ways 

 are mostly wider than those of older date. 

 The old walls, with the sunlight dis- 



