104 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



fore the front door, as prim and unused as the front 

 parlor; fenced in from the corners of the house with 

 white palings, sharp and ranged like vestal bayonets 

 around the few neat and proper flowers which en- 

 joyed the privileges of existence within the modest 

 enclosure. These were the old-time tulips, jonquils, 

 gilliflowers always these and heart' s-ease perhaps; 

 or bell flowers, poppies, mallows, fair-maids-of-Kent 

 and Love-lies-bleeding. Lily-of-the-valley was there 

 no doubt, and the "great white silver lily" of the 

 Annunciation; valerian, "flower-de-luces" as Parkin- 

 son calls them, violets, foxgloves, daffodils, peonies, 

 the blue and the yellow aconite, the "honestie," the 

 yellow larkspur, and the sweet, sweet old eglantine, 

 trailing against its rack beside the prim little front 

 doorstep. The "Mary gold" lived behind the house, 

 handy to the kitchen and the savory stew-pot, for 

 there was a very sharp line drawn, when the division 

 was finally made, between the front parlor-garden 



flowers and those which had allotted, homely tasks of 



t 

 ministering to the inner man. 



There were few large places of note, however, at 

 any time. The Bromfield Mansion, which was 

 erected on Beacon Hill in 1722, was one of the ear- 

 liest. This had a paved courtyard behind it, with 

 terraces beyond and above this, rising in succession to 

 a summer-house at the hill's summit. These terraces 



