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The Poor Boy, privileged old friend that he was, entered without ringing, and started through the ground floor of the house, stopping at times to admire a mantel-piece, a ceiling, or a painting. Lord Harrow's new hothouses being in full blast, there were flowers everywhere, and great logs of birch roared and crackled in all the fireplaces.
From the Elector, who was eagerly interested in his game, Count Schwarzenberg obtained permission to accompany the Electress. The whole company, with the exception of the gentlemen busied in card playing, followed them. Like a glittering, gigantic serpent, sparkling in all the colors of the rainbow, wound the long, unbroken procession through the hothouses.
I saw an account of his expenses, which during the twenty-one weeks he remained at Hamburg amounted to 122,000 marks, or about 183,000 francs. None but the most exquisite wines were drunk at the table of Dupas. Even his servants were treated with champagne, and the choicest fruits were brought from the fine hothouses of Berlin.
Knew everything that could happen to a flower or a s'rub or a vegetable. Knew it all. Had a lib'ery of books an' read 'em night an' day. Head gardener's cottage was good enough for gentry. The old Markis used to walk round the hothouses an' gardens talking to him by the hour.
The Jesuit's garden is a most beautiful one, occupying a space of some 12 acres, laid out with care and furnished with fruit trees of every description, pruned and trained after the latest horticultural designs. There are wondrously ingenious plans, too, for irrigating the beds, forcing pits and hothouses, and long alleys with vines trained over them.
Goddard accepted the explanation and on the following day Nellie had forgotten all about it; but her mother remembered it long, and it was many days before she recovered entirely from the shock of her interview with the squire. The latter did not come to see her as usual, but on the morning after his visit he sent her down a package of books and some orchids from his hothouses.
Man No. 2 at this juncture came in and presented a florist's box and envelope in a tray, saying, sotto voce, as he did so, "Shall I hopen it and arrange them, miss, or will you wear them?" for, as the result of lavish entertaining and many hothouses as well as friends, flowers showered upon the Latham house at all hours, and both library and hall were almost too fragrant.
American huts, English cottages, French pavilions, kiosks, theatres, churches, all strewn around, and between them the fresh green turf, the clear springing water, blooming bushes, rare trees, hothouses, in which one might fancy one's self transported into the tropical forest; whole gardens brought from Damascus, and blooming under one roof. What colors, what fragrance!
Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here on Friday."
To enjoy the silent, perfect workings of the great household, to drive herself or be driven, to walk and read, to loiter through walled gardens and hothouses at will, such things to a healthy woman with an unobscured power of enjoyment were luxuries which could not pall. Walderhust found her an actual addition to his comfort. She was never in the way.
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