314 A Walk from 



from 20 to 30 feet in length. The seat was wrought 

 in geraniums of every tint, all grown to an even, com- 

 pact surface, presenting figures as diversified as the 

 alternating hues could produce. The back was worked 

 in taller flowers, presenting the same evenness of line 

 and surface. On entering the garden gate and catch- 

 ing the first sight of these beautiful structures, you 

 take them for veritable sofas, as perfectly wrought as 

 anything was ever done in Berlin wool. 



Ripon is an interesting little city, with a fact-roll of 

 history reaching back into the dimmest centuries of the 

 land. It has run the gauntlet of all the Saxon, Danish, 

 Scotch and Norman raids and regimes. It was burnt 

 once or twice by each of these races in the struggle for 

 supremacy. But with a plucky tenacity of life, it arose 

 successively out of its own ashes and spread its phoenix 

 wings to a new and vigorous vitality. A venerable 

 cathedral looks down upon it with a motherly face. 

 Unique, old buildings, with half their centuries unre- 

 corded and lost in oblivion, stand to this day in good 

 repair, as the homes of happy children, who play at 

 marbles and the last sports of the day just as if they 

 were born in houses only a year older than themselves. 

 Institutions and customs older than the cathedral are 

 kept up with a filial faith in their virtue. One of the 

 most interesting of these, I believe, was established 



