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Everything is trimmed up, and there sits a lady by the fire." Wreaths festooned the archway between the parlours, there were vases of flowers, and hanging-baskets of trailing vines, and a canary in a gilded cage, a bright fire in the grate lighting it up cheerily; Aunt Deborah smiling and knitting on one side, "mother" on the other.

Here the people had built us the finest rest-house seen on the trip. For this house had separate rooms all opening on the same front, the roof being continued over the front so as to form a sort of veranda, under which a bamboo table had been set up. But, as though this were not enough, there were hanging-baskets of plants, bamboo and other leaves ornamenting the posts.

In the hanging-baskets and on the brackets are the ferns and flowers that flourish in the deep woods, and around the window is the ivy, running from two boxes; and, in case the window has some sun, a Nasturtium may spread its bright blossoms among the leaves. Then, in the winter, when there is less sun, the Striped Spider-wort, the Smilax and the Saxifraga.

One little garden linaria, at first employed as an ornament for hanging-baskets, has become so common on old walls and banks as to be now considered a mere weed, and exterminated accordingly by fashionable gardeners. Such are the unaccountable reverses of fortune, that one age will pay fifty guineas a bulb for a plant which the next age grubs up unanimously as a vulgar intruder.

Is it quite fair to take advantage of a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned depths of a young girl's nature, which I can look through, as the balloon-voyagers tell us they see from their hanging-baskets through the translucent waters which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in ships might strive to pierce in vain?

There's Aunt Easygo has plant after plant brought from the greenhouse, and hanging-baskets, and all sorts of things; but her plants grow yellow and drop their leaves, and her hanging-baskets get dusty and poverty-stricken, while mamma's go on flourishing as heart could desire."

As I turned the pages, I hesitated for a moment. Is it quite fair to take advantage of a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned depths of a young girl's nature, which I can look through, as the balloon-voyagers tell us they see from their hanging-baskets through the translucent waters which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in ships might strive to pierce in vain?

The hanging-baskets, filled with blooming plants, trailers, and ferns, have been much used at weddings to add to the bower-like appearance of the rooms; and altars and steps of churches have been richly adorned with flowering plants and palm-trees and other luxuriant foliage. The prices paid for flowers have been enormous.

The house, which was big enough for the girls to have gone into if they could have reached it, had a front door and a window on either side. There was a veranda on which stood three small rustic benches, quite strong enough to have held the three girls had they had wings to fly up there. The veranda had a railing around it, above which hung two hanging-baskets filled with bright flowers.

Is it quite fair to take advantage of a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned depths of a young girl's nature, which I can look through, as the balloon-voyagers tell us they see from their hanging-baskets through the translucent waters which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in ships might strive to pierce in vain?