OUR GRANDMOTHER’S GARDENS 
the dominion of the air, while on all sides the peren¬ 
nials, long since insurgent trespassers from the beds 
where they were planted, mingle their colors in an 
intoxicating jumble. Lilies of many sorts, white and 
purple and spotted ; tall pale larkspurs and canterbury- 
bells, and bachelor’s buttons running the gamut of blue 
O 
from white to indigo. Candleberry, smoke-bush, snow¬ 
balls jostle the roses that take refuge on the roof of the 
summer-house and porch, and in and out of the fence. 
Myrtle, or periwinkle, with its geometrical flowers of 
sober blue and its polished leaves, scrambles every¬ 
where, and from odd corners stocks and spice-flower 
send their sweetness. All the old-fashioned sister¬ 
hood, in fact, wander as they will within the pre¬ 
cincts of this garden. The old wooden benches 
stand comfortably under the trees, beyond whose 
shadow the sun steeps his rays in the tangled 
color; a languid, murmurous hum from bee and 
beetle accentuates the silence, a gentle, interested 
silence, as of old days brooding over the place, musing 
of past events. 
Hither came Hawthorne in his youth, escorting his 
cousins back from some evening sociable with shy cour¬ 
tesy. “ He had not much to say, but his silence never 
made you feel uneasy,” the younger of the two sisters 
will tell you, going back to her girlhood with a smile. 
“ Perhaps he was always a little relieved to say good- 
by at the gate, however. But he liked to spend an 
27 
