left a small
share for each; but there's Nelly now, pining away--I don't know for
what, but I see it plain enough; and here am I myself with a heavy heart
this day; and sure, who can tell if Kate, great as she is, has n't her
sorrows; and poor Frank, 't is many a hard thing, perhaps, he has to
bear. I believe in reality we were better then!"

He arose, and walked about the room, now stopping before each
well-remembered object, now shaking his head in mournful acquiescence
with some unspoken regret; he went in turn through each chamber, and
then, passing from the room that had been Nelly's, he descended a little
zigzag, rickety stair, by which Hans had contrived to avoid injuring
the gnarled branches of a fig-tree that grew beneath. Dalton now
found himself in the garden; but how unlike what it had been! Once the
perfection of blooming richness and taste,--the beds without a weed, the
gravel trimly raked and shining, bright channels of limpid water running
amid the flowers, and beautiful birds of gay plumage caged beneath the
shady shrubs,--now all was overrun with rank grass and tall weeds; the
fountains were dried up, the flowers trodden down,--even the stately yew
hedge, the massive growth of a century, was broken by the depredations
of the mountain cattle. All was waste, neglect, and desolation.

"I 'd not know the place,--it is not like itself," muttered Dalton,
sorrowfully. "I never saw the like of this before. There's the elegant
fine plants dying for want of care! and the rose-trees rotting just for
want of a little water! To think of how he labored late and early here,
and to see it now! He used to call them carnations his children: there
was one Agnes, and there was another Undine--indeed, I believe that was
a lily; and I think there was a Nelly, too; droll enough to make out
they were Christians! but sure, they did as well; and he watched after
them as close! and ay, and stranger than all, he'd sit and talk to them
for hours. It's a quare world altogether; but maybe it's our own fault
that it's not better; and perhaps we ought to give in more to each
other's notions, and not sneer at whims and fancies when they don't
please ourselves."

It was while thus ruminating, Dalton entered a little arbor, whose
trellised walls and roofs had been one of the triumphs of Hanserl's
skill. Ruin, however, had now fallen on it, and the drooping branches
and straggling tendrils hung mournfully down on all sides, covering th