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As they crossed the threshold of the humble abode, Edgar looked around upon its familiar, homely snugness with satisfaction at the huge, four-post bed, covered with a cheerful "log cabin" quilt made of scraps of calico of every known hue and pattern; at the white-washed walls adorned with pictures cut from old books and magazines; at the "shelf," as Mammy called the mantel-piece, with its lambrequin of scallopped strips of newspaper, and its china vases filled with hundred-leaf roses and pinks; at the spotless bare floor and homemade split-bottomed chairs; at the small, but bright, windows, with their rows of geraniums and verbenas, brilliantly blooming in boxes, tin-cans and broken-nosed tea-pots.
The flower beds are dotted about the lawn, which surrounds the house and slopes away from it, and they are brilliant patches of colour, gay with verbenas, geraniums, and petunias. Here and there clumps of tall trees rise above the shrubs, and as a background there is a thick plantation of red and blue gums, to shelter the garden from the strong N.W. winds.
Charlotte was sadly forlorn, and shut herself up in her pantry, or in her own little attic with Jane's verbenas which cook had banished from the kitchen, and lost her sorrows in books hired at the library. She read, and dreamt, created leisure for reading, lived in a trance, and awoke from it to see her work neglected, reproach herself, and strain her powers to make up for what was left undone.
"Just common things," replied Roger. "It was rather late so I planted seeds that would hurry up; sweet alyssum for a border, of course, and white verbenas and balsam, and petunias, and candytuft and, phlox and stocks and portulaca and poppies. Do you remember, I asked you, Dorothy, if you minded my taking up that aster that showed a white bud? That went to Mrs. Atwood.
I had actually hoped to hear from her some word which would have revealed to me why I thought so much of it: now it appeared as if it was no more to her than any other pretty flower and even less than some she was peculiarly fond of, such as the fragrant little lily called Virgin's Tears, the scented pure white and the rose-coloured verbenas, and several others.
She paused to look at the roses and carnations, the lilies and dahlias, the violets and verbenas and geraniums. The fast brightening air was scented with delicate odors. She was attracted to a small geranium with many buds and two full-blown crimson flowers. "How much for that?" she asked a young man who seemed to be in charge. He eyed her shrewdly.
They became strong of wing in a surprisingly short time, and I never saw them or the male bird after, though the female was regular as usual in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not think it ground enough for a generalization, but in the many times when I watched the old birds feeding their young, the mother always alighted, while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing.
Roses bloomed in the beds and out of the grass, and climbed up on the walls of the house; white Annunciation lilies shone like stars here and there; whole beds of heliotrope were preparing their perfume; geraniums held up their elegant heads of every colour; verbenas and mignonette and honeysuckle and red lilies and yellow lilies and hardy gladiolus were either just beginning or in full beauty; with many more, too many to tell; and the old-fashioned guelder rose had shaken out its white balls of snow, and one or two laburnums were hung thick with their clusters of "dropping gold."
During the winter months they should have only enough water to keep the earth from going to dust, and as much light and air as possible without absolutely freezing hard, after the manner of treating lemon verbenas, geraniums, and wall-flowers.
She crawled over the ground, as though she would have carried off the very soil itself in a clutch of supreme passion. She filled her skirt with a harvest of aromatic plants, southernwood, mint, verbenas. She came across a border of balm, and left not a leaf of it unplucked. She even broke off two big fennels which she threw over her shoulders like a couple of trees.
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