A GARDEN was wonderful at night a place of 

 strange silences and yet stranger sound: trees 

 darkly guarding mysterious paths that ran into 

 caverns of darkness; the scents of flowers rising from 

 damp earth heavy with dew; flowers that were weary 

 with the dust and noise of the day and slept gently, 

 gratefully, with their heads drooping to the soil, their 

 petals closed by the tender hands of the spirits of the 

 garden. The night sounds were strangely musical. Cries 

 that were discordant in the day mingled now with the 

 running of distant water, the last notes of some bird 

 before it slept, the measured harmony of a far-away 

 bell, the gentle rustle of some arrival in the thickets; 

 the voice that could not be heard in the noisy chatter 

 of the day rose softly now in a little song of the night 

 and the dark trees and the silver firelight of the stars." 



HUGH WALPOLE. 



