macher,--all, all had been in vain.
No sun shone there, and nothing grew. The gardener who reigned supreme
in those days had given me this big piece for that sole reason, because
he could do nothing with it himself. He was no doubt of opinion that it
was quite good enough for a child to experiment upon, and went his way,
when I had thanked him with a profuseness of gratitude I still remember,
with an unmoved countenance. For more than a year I worked and waited,
and watched the career of the flourishing orchard opposite with puzzled
feelings. The orchard was only a few yards away, and yet, although my
garden was full of manure, and water, and attentions that were never
bestowed on the orchard, all it could show and ever did show were a few
unhappy beginnings of growth that either remained stationary and did
not achieve flowers, or dwindled down again and vanished. Once I timidly
asked the gardener if he could explain these signs and wonders, but he
was a busy man with no time for answering questions, and told me shortly
that gardening was not learned in a day. How well I remember that
afternoon, and the very shape of the lazy clouds, and the smell of
spring things, and myself going away abashed and sitting on the shaky
bench in my domain and wondering for the hundredth time what it was that
made the difference between my bit and the bit of orchard in front of
me. The fruit trees, far enough away from the wall to be beyond the
reach of its cold shade, were tossing their flower-laden heads in the
sunshine in a carelessly well-satisfied fashion that filled my heart
with envy. There was a rise in the field behind them, and at the foot
of its protecting slope they luxuriated in the insolent glory of their
white and pink perfection. It was May, and my heart bled at the thought
of the tulips I had put in in November, and that I had never seen since.
The whole of the rest of the garden was on fire with tulips; behind
me, on the other side of the wall, were rows and rows of them,--cups of
translucent loveliness, a jewelled ring flung right round the lawn. But
what was there not on the other side of that wall? Things came up there
and grew and flowered exactly as my gardening books said they should do;
and in front of me, in the gay orchard, things that nobody ever
troubled about or cultivated or noticed throve joyously beneath the
trees,--daffodils thrusting their spears through the grass, crocuses
peeping out inquiringly, snowdro