Old Time Gardens 
416 
white cows, and flocks of white sheep, and the 
splendid oxen were white. White pigeons circled 
in the air around ample dove-cotes, and the farm- 
yard poultry were all white ; an enthusiastic chronicler 
recounts also white peacocks on the wall, but these 
are also denied. 
On every side were old terraced walls covered with 
Roses and flowering vines, banked with shrubs, and 
standing in beds of old-time flowers running over 
with bloom ; but behind the house, stretching up 
the lovely hillside, was The Garden, and when we 
entered it, lo ! it was a White Garden with edg- 
ings of pure and seemly white Candytuft from the 
forcing beds, and flowers of Spring Snowflake and 
Star of Bethlehem and Jonquils; and there were 
white-flowered shrubs of spring, the earliest' Spiraeas 
and Deutzias ; the doubled-flowered Cherries and 
Almonds and old favorites, such as Peter’s Wreath, 
all white and wonderfully expressive of a simplicity, a 
purity, a closeness to nature. 
I saw this lovely farmstead and radiant White 
Garden first in glowing sunlight, but far rarer must 
have been its charm in moonlight ; though the white 
beasts (as English hinds call cattle) were sleeping in 
careful shelter ; and the white dog, assured of their 
safety, was silent ; and the white fowl were in coop 
and cote ; and 
(i Only the white sheep were sometimes seen 
To cross the strips of moon-blanch’d green.’ ’ 
But the White Garden, ah ! then the garden truly 
lived ; it was like lightest snow wreaths bathed in 
