is a wilderness,
the traces can be found. A dwarf fruit tree stood at every corner, and
between the trees a three-foot border of flowers kept the peas and
potatoes in their places. But the borders were one sustained,
elaborate, glorified disorder. There were roses of all kinds that have
ever gladdened poor gardens and simple hearts--yellow tea roses, moss
roses with their firm, shapely buds, monthly roses that bore nearly all
the year in a warm spot, the white briar that is dear to north country
people, besides standards in their glory, with full round purple
blossom. Among the roses, compassing them about and jostling one
another, some later, some earlier in bloom, most of them together in
the glad summer days, one could find to his hand wall-flowers and
primroses, sweet-william and dusty-miller, daisies red and white,
forget-me-nots and pansies, pinks and carnations, marigolds and phloxes
of many varieties. The confusion of colours was preposterous, and
showed an utter want of aesthetic sense. In fact, one may confess that
the Lodge garden was only one degree removed from the vulgarity and
prodigality of nature. There was no taste, no reserve, no harmony
about that garden. Nature simply ran riot and played according to her
will like a child of the former days, bursting into apple blossom and
laburnum gold and the bloom of peas and the white strawberry flower in
early summer, and then, later in the year, weaving garlands of blazing
red, yellow, white, purple, round beds of stolid roots and brakes of
currant bushes. There was a copper beech, where the birds sang, and
from which they raided the fruit with the skill of Highland caterans.
The Lodge bees lived all day in this garden, save when they went to
reinforce their sweetness from the heather bloom. The big trees stood
round the place and covered it from every wind except the south, and
the sun was ever blessing it. There was one summer-house, a mass of
honeysuckle, and there they sat down as those that had come back to
Eden from a wander year.

"Well, Kit?"

"Thank God for our Pleasaunce." And they would have stayed for hours,
but there was one other spot that had a fascination for the General
neither years nor wars had dulled, and he, who was the most
matter-of-fact and romantic of men, must see and show it to his
daughter before they ceased.

"A mile and more, Kit, but through the woods and by the water all the
way."

Sometimes they went down a li