pposite direction, and curving in a green sweep with the shore,
was a fine apple-orchard, and that end of the old house was completely
embowered by plum, pear and peach trees, that sheltered minor thickets
of lilac, cerenga, snow-ball and other blossoming shrubs. In their
season, the ground under this double screen of foliage was crimson
with patches of the dwarf rose, and the old-fashioned windows were
half covered with the tall graceful trees of that snow-white species
of the same queenly flower, which is only to be found in very ancient
gardens, and seldom even there at the present time. In front of the
old house was a flower-garden of considerable extent, lifted terrace
after terrace from the water, which it circled like a crescent. The
profusion of blossoms and verdure flung a sort of spring-like glory
around the old building until the autumn storms came up from the ocean
and swept the rich vesture from the trees, leaving the mansion-house
bold, unsheltered and desolate-looking enough.

The cove upon which this old house stood looked far out upon the
ocean; no other house was in sight, and it was completely sheltered
not only by a forest of trees but by the banks that, high and broken,
curved in at the mouth of the cove, narrowing the inlet, and forming
altogether a sea and land view scarcely to be surpassed.

The mansion-house was an irregular and ancient affair enough, everyway
unlike the half Grecian, half Gothic, or wholly Swiss specimens of
architecture with which Long Island is now scattered. Still, there
was a substantial appearance of comfort and wealth about it. Though
wild and of ancient growth all its trees were in good order, and
judiciously planted; well kept outhouses were sheltered by their
luxurious foliage, and to these were joined all those appliances to a
rich man's dwelling necessary to distinguish the old mansion as the
country residence of some wealthy merchant, who could afford to
inhabit it only in the pleasantest portion of the year.

It was the pleasantest portion of the year--May, bright, beautiful
May, with her world of blossoms and her dew-showers in the night. The
apple-orchard, the tall old pear-trees and the plum thickets were one
sheet of rosy or snow-white blossoms. The old oaks rose against the
sky, piled upon each other branch over branch, their rich foliage yet
blushing with a dusky red as it unfolded leaf by leaf to the air. The
flower-garden was azure and golden with violets