/IDs Mintet Garden 



ever is old is precious, and that whatever 

 is faded, discolored, moldy, or dilapidated 

 is old. She it is who has enriched the li- 

 brary with dog-eared French volumes from 

 the second-hand book-stores in a street 

 named Royal, but smelling distinctly ple- 

 beian. Thence, too, she fetches Venetian 

 bottles and glasses, squat brass candle- 

 sticks, and grim little claw-footed tables to 

 match an Empire desk of the same smoky 

 mahogany, much patched and re-glued. 

 Like a busy, self-satisfied bird building a 

 nest out of faded shreds of last year's 

 autumn leaves and bark with a few bits 

 of snake-skin and two or three bright fea- 

 thers, she has woven a charm against the 

 rough walls and above the gaping fireplace. 

 Such is the magnetic allurement of this 

 shelved and book-dusty and archaic den 

 that when a norther comes, giving practical 

 excuse for a pile of burning logs on the 

 hearth, a steaming kettle on the crane, and 

 a semicircle of complacent sitters in the 

 glow, we all forget our low-country environ- 

 ment, and behave as true Northerners, one 

 of us reading aloud, the rest listening, not 

 i8 



