The room was only used as a storehouse for lumber,
and it was nobody's business to clean the window.
Mary looked in, curious to solve the riddle. A door which she had often
noticed, but never seen opened, now stood wide open, and the old
quadrangular garden, which was James Steadman's particular care, smiled
at her in the golden evening light. Seen thus, this little old Dutch
garden seemed to Mary the prettiest thing she had ever looked upon.
There were beds of tulips and hyacinths, ranunculus, narcissus,
tuberose, making a blaze of colour against the old box borders, a foot
high. The crumbling old brick walls of the outbuildings, and that
dungeon-like wall which formed the back of the new house, were clothed
with clematis and wistaria, woodbine and magnolia. All that loving
labour could do had been done day by day for the last forty years to
make this confined space a thing of beauty. Mary went out of the dark
stable into the sunny garden, and looked round her, full of admiration
for James Steadman's work.
'If ever Jack and I can afford to have a garden, I hope we shall be able
to make it like this,' she thought.
Pages:
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410