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Without, the scene, beheld by the clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the garden-ground round those old-fashioned country residences which, though a little modernized, still preserve their original character, the velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and scented, here to the left by lilacs, laburnums, and rich syringas; there, to the right, giving glimpses, over low clipped yews, of a green bowling-alley, with the white columns of a summer-house built after the Dutch taste, in the reign of William III.; and in front stealing away under covert of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the well-wooded undulating park.
Dead leaves, dead dry stalks of foxgloves and mullens. broken branches, and an arbour with trellised roof, borne down by the weight of the vine. But in spring and summer the place was gorgeous in parts with a confused tangle of plants and shrubs in flower. Persian lilacs, syringas, labernums made thickets here and there and covered their heads with bloom.
The old lilac bushes were in full leaf, the syringas were in blossom, there were still daffodils in the corner near the fir-tree gate; glossy, spiky leaves marked a row of onions just where her onions had always grown Little-Dad had put in her seed; the sun slanted in gold-brown bars across the bare floor of the familiar, low-ceilinged living-room, softening to a ruddy glow the bindings of the familiar books everywhere.
Bickford aimlessly handled the syringas and flowering almond sprays, choosing them out of the fragrant heap only to lay them down again. She glanced out of the window; then gave Miss Pendexter a long expressive look. "I expect you're going to carry 'em over to the burying-ground?" inquired the guest, in a sympathetic tone.
"Mine will be syringas and pink geraniums," said Rose, "and, Polly Sherwood, would you ever think shadows could be so horrid as they were last night?" "No, I wouldn't," said Polly, "specially when we're out here in the sunlight. Now, just see what I'm doing. I'm making this wreath of pink rosebuds and mignonette. You'll look fine in it when it's done."
We often loitered past the deserted garden of the Hôtel Kirkpatrick, where the lilacs and syringas drenched the air with perfume as on that spring afternoon, four years before. Gaston would say to me: "See yonder balcony it was from that balcony Francezka bade me good by. And look the very guelder rose-bush by which I once spoke with her, on coming to pay my respects to Madame Riano!
There were great clumps of guelder-roses on each side, and syringas, which had grown to be trees, and looked like fountains of white blossoms.
It was evening when I visited the theatre, a balmy spring evening, where shelter could be obtained from a cold wind. The pink Judas trees were in full flower. The syringas scented the air. The golden sunlight filled the theatre with light and warmth. But two persons were present, except myself.
There were the tall hollyhocks beginning to flower and dazzle the eye with their pink, white, and yellow; there were the syringas and Guelder roses, all large and disorderly for want of trimming; there were leafy walls of scarlet beans and late peas; there was a row of bushy filberts in one direction, and in another a huge apple-tree making a barren circle under its low-spreading boughs.
One of its doors opens directly upon the green, always called the Common; the other, facing the south, a few steps from it, over a paved foot-walk, on the other side of which is the miniature front yard, bordered with lilacs and syringas. The honest mansion makes no pretensions.
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