276 VIRGINIA 



bushes were in pale pink bloom, and the 

 branches of a tall snowball - tree in the 

 unfenced front yard of the house fairly 

 drooped under their load of white globular 

 clusters. Just opposite was a sweet-brier 

 bush, "the pastoral eglantine," half dead 

 like others that I had noticed here, and like 

 the whole tribe of its New England brothers 

 and sisters. Here as in Massachusetts a 

 blight was upon them; they were living 

 with difficulty. It would be good, I thought, 

 to see the sweet-brier once where it flour- 

 ishes ; where the beauty of the plant matches 

 the beauty and sweetness of the rose it 

 bears. Can it be that it is not quite hardy 

 even in Virginia? 



My seat under the snowball-tree (to the 

 coolness of which I had moved from under 

 the cedar) had presently to be given up. 

 The women of the house became aware of 

 me, and out of a bashful regard for my own 

 comfort I took the road again. Soon I 

 passed a double house, with painted doors 

 and two-sash windows ! And in one of the 

 windows were lace curtains ! It was won- 

 derful, — I was obliged to confess it, in spite 

 of a deep-seated masculine prejudice against 



