SUMMER'S LEASE 
69 
A long lance of late sunlight strikes athwart the 
smooth-shaven turf between the cedar plumes, redden¬ 
ing to clearest ruby the old Provence roses that crown 
the western wall, and touching to even frailer beauty 
the shell-pink petals of my trailing briar-rose. I were 
most ungrateful and altogether unworthy the possession 
of a single rose-tree did I not render to the new and 
the comparatively modish roses the homage which is 
their due. They do, indeed, hold ample space both in 
my garden-plots and my affections; and still I must 
confess to a lively sense of regret for the many lost and 
forgotten roses of old time now disowned and discredited 
by the severe fancier. At the same time I thank my 
stars for a goodly heritage of ancient roses; here grow 
great bushes of Provencal line, unutterably fragrant; 
here the snow-white Garland is prodigal of its pearls. 
The abominable aphis is as ubiquitous as ever, and 
the fat brown worm i 5 the bud, together with his 
wriggling grey and green coadjutors in crime, has been 
trying to do his worst, yet, in spite of all these evil 
attempts, the rose-garden is full of blossom and bud, 
and most luxuriant of leafage. The clipped yew hedges 
that environ it make a pleasant shelter from rough 
winds, while the fountain in the centre, where an infant 
stone Triton is for ever spouting rainbows through his 
chipped conch-shell, lends soft sound and movement to 
a pleasaunce that else might seem too profoundly sunken 
in silence and perfume. As it is, I would not have it 
changed one whit. Araminta looks coldly upon my 
flowering hedge of briar-rose and eglantine, all be¬ 
spangled with its frail shell-pink and snow-white 
