continually told the gardener to keep his eye upon them,
it was of no use.

The garden had been originally laid out in the French fashion, with
broad rectangular paths, high thick hedges, alleys, and borders of
box.

There was a circular open space, where four paths met; seats were
placed around it, and in the centre stood a sun-dial.

In the outer part of the garden, especially towards the north-west, a
thick border of trees encircled it, as with a frame. They were common
native trees, placed there to protect the fine French garden and the
exotic plants and flowers from the cold sea wind.

The pavilion by the pond lay to the west of the mansion, and although
only a few paces distant; it was looked upon in old times as a sort
of Trianon. Here they assembled to drink coffee, or to listen to
music. The Company, filing along by the most ingenious roundabout
paths over the bridge and about the pond, embarked in the boat, and
were ferried across with three strokes of the oar, amidst innumerable
compliments and witticisms.

Morten Garman remembered all this from his youth. He himself had
endeavoured, but with only partial success, to keep up the old
customs and manners.

People were changed, the pond was filling up, and even his father's
stately garden seemed likely to become a wilderness.

On both sides of the gravel path leading to the pavilion there was a
hedge, so thickly grown that, to the great disgust of the gardener,
young ladies used to seat themselves on its top. At regular intervals
the box bushes were clipped into pyramidal shapes, and it was here
that the Consul delighted to pace up and down. Here, too, remained
all that was left of the ancient grandeur.

The garden beyond was beginning to be somewhat irregular. The trees
that had been planted to give shelter, now that their trunks were
thick and their roots strong, spread on their own account; and as
they could not face the north-west wind, their boughs stretched
inwards upon the garden, over the rectangular paths and the winding
dolls' hedges of clipped box.

It was not the gardener's fault that the plantation had so spread
that it was now more of a park than a garden, and it would have been
impossible to restore the former French model, except by cutting down
the trees and planting anew.

When the Consul walked here in the calm summer evenings, he could,
through the towering trees, catch a glimpse of the bright afterglow,
which shed its light upo