104 
OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
fore the front door, as prim and unused as the front 
parlor; fenced in from the corners of the house with 
white palings, sharp and ranged like vestal bayonets 
around the few neat and proper flowers which en¬ 
joyed the privileges of existence within the modest 
enclosure. These were the old-time tulips, jonquils, 
gilliflowers—always these—and heart’s-ease perhaps; 
or bell flowers, poppies, mallows, fair-maids-of-Kent 
and Love-lies-bleeding. Lily-of-the-valley was there 
no doubt, and the “great white silver lily” of the 
Annunciation; valerian, “flower-de-luces” as Parkin¬ 
son calls them, violets, foxgloves, daffodils, peonies, 
the blue and the yellow aconite, the “honestie,” the 
yellow larkspur, and the sweet, sweet old eglantine, 
trailing against its rack beside the prim little front 
doorstep. The “Mary gold” lived behind the house, 
handy to the kitchen and the savory stew-pot, for 
there was a very sharp line drawn, when the division 
was finally made, between the front parlor-garden 
flowers and those which had allotted, homely tasks of 
ministering to the inner man. 
There were few large places of note, however, at 
any time. The Bromfield Mansion, which was 
erected on Beacon Hill in 1722, was one of the ear¬ 
liest. This had a paved courtyard behind it, with 
terraces beyond and above this, rising in succession to 
a summer-house at the hill’s summit. These terraces 
