OCTOBER. 243 



as any tree of the forest after the first touch of frost. 

 Never a blossom was found nestling in her hair, so far as 

 we are told, but they clung to her dress accidentally, of 

 course. Mild reproof proved irksome at last, and her 

 troubles ended by marrying out of meeting. 



Let this suffice of her, this Quaker fairy, as she was 

 called, save casual reference ; and what now of the rem- 

 nant of her father's garden ? Perhaps not a tree or vine 

 that I found was one of those planted one hundred and 

 ninety years ago; but the pear may have been. That 

 pear tree is beyond description. Once it was a stately 

 growth, perhaps nearly two feet in diameter ; now a mere 

 fragment of a hollow trunk is left, from which projects a 

 single stunted branch, and from this I gathered a single, 

 rotting pear. The little that remained of it at all edible 

 was evidence that in its day the Bishops had excellent 

 fruit. I ate that morsel with closed eyes, and sat by the 

 fireside of the Bishops in early colonial days. Is this not 

 happiness enough for a hazy, dreamy October day? 



Three grapes! Small, seedy, and sour, yet what of 

 that ? Whether or no John Bishop planted the vine for 

 it was not a native grape some one had, and I saw the 

 Quaker fairy gathering fruit as I plucked the three wrink- 

 led berries. Their bitterness brought tears to my eyes, 

 but with what juice they had I drank a deep draught of 

 that cunning wine which Jane Bishop well knew how to 

 make. For home-made wine was then as much a neces- 

 sity as vinegar, and far more wholesome. And while I 

 struggled with the mat of weeds, hoping to trace out the 

 narrow path edged with the white stones " dear cousin 

 William gave me," as she has left on record, I found the 

 neck of a small glass decanter. It was well buried in the 

 soil that here has certainly never been disturbed since the 

 old garden was abandoned. How vividly the old side- 

 board, a remnant of which I cherish, floated into space, 



