In Lilac Tide 
149 
now they are as wild as their companions, the Cedar 
hedges. 
Gathering in the front dooryard of a fallen farm- 
house some splendid branches of flowering Lilac, I 
found a few feet of cellar wall and wooden house 
side standing, and the sills of two windows. These 
window sills, exposed for years to the bleaching and 
Lilacs at Hopewell. 
fading of rain and sun and frost, still bore the circu- 
lar marks of the flower pots which, filled with house- 
plants, had graced the kitchen windows for many 
a winter under the care of a flower-loving house 
mistress. A few days later I learned from a woman 
over ninety years of age — an inmate of the tc Poor 
House” — the story of the home thus touchingly 
indicated by the Lilac bushes and the stains of the 
flower pots. Over eighty years ago she had brought 
