Flowers of Mystery 
449 
attention. I recall once being seated on the door- 
step of a deserted farm-house, musing a little over 
the sad thought of this lost home, when suddenly 
someone tapped me on the cheek — I suppose I 
ought to say some thing, though it seemed a human 
touch. It was a spray of Matrimony vine, twenty 
feet long or more, that had reached around a corner, 
and helped by a breeze, had appealed to me for sym- 
pathy and companionship. I answered by following 
it around the corner. It had been trained up to a 
little shelf-like ledge or roof, over what had been a 
pantry window, and hung in long lines of heavy 
shade. It said to me: “ Here once lived a flower- 
loving woman and a man who cared for her comfort 
and pleasure. She planted me when she, and the 
man, and the house were young, and he made the 
window shelter, and trained me over it, to make 
cool and green the window where she worked. I 
was the symbol of their happy married love. See ! 
there they lie, under the gray stone beneath those 
cedars. Their children all are far away, but every 
year I grow fresh and green, though I find it lonely 
here now.” To me, the Matrimony vine is ever a 
plant of interest, and it may be very beautiful, if 
cared for. On page i 8 6 is shown the lovely growth 
on the porch at Van Cortlandt Manor. 
With a sentiment of wonder and inquiry, not un- 
mixed with mystery, do we regard many flowers, 
which are described in our botanies as Garden Es- 
capes. This Matrimony vine is one of the many 
creeping, climbing things that have wandered away 
from houses. Honeysuckles and Trumpet-vines 
2 G 
