OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS 



both flowers and vegetables, but it is smaller now, and 

 the vegetables have been banished. The ponds are 

 connected by a riotous brook, reached by way of a 

 broad walk bordered with rows of brilliant annuals on 

 either side, and almost entirely overarched at one time 

 by superb shrubbery, since dead. The path ends just 

 where the brook escapes from the first pond in sprayey 

 falls, and there an arbor buried in honeysuckle and 

 guelder-roses shelters seats for the weary or the idle. 



The square terraces step downward from the house, 

 divided into many beds by box-bordered paths. In 

 the great-grandmother's time, there was in one corner 

 the garden of herbs, and a huge asparagus bed, a new 

 thing then, as well as many vines bearing white or pur- 

 ple grapes, from which wine was made during the fall 

 days. Some of the old flowers still linger in the bor- 

 ders, such as valerian, marvel-of-Peru, and moss-pinks. 

 But where the asparagus grew the daffodils and jon- 

 quils nowadays spread a carpet of gold. The solid, fine 

 nobility of the house and grounds, their effect of space 

 and permanence, and old-world, courteous bearing re- 

 main unchanged, however ; are, indeed, accentuated by 

 the lapse of time. 



Along the paths, wearing a great leghorn hat on her 

 high-piled hair, and in a gown of brilliant flowered 

 chintz, walked the great-grandmother, then a young 

 bride, superintending the work of servants and slaves, 

 keeping careful watch on everything, and noting the 



3* 



