Pagina 39 di 788

Not old could the hands have been that had so abandoned them!

There too, a white gown, freshly taken from the hook to put on,

was spread upon the arm of a chair. In the windows were pots of

fragrant flowers: geraniums, asters, gillyflowers, and violets.

The traveller stepped to one of the windows-a new marvel was

before him. On the bank of the brook, in a spot once overgrown

with nettles, was a tiny garden intersected by paths, full of

clumps of English grass and of mint. The slender wooden fence,

fashioned into a monogram, shone with ribbons of gay daisies.

Evidently the beds had but just been sprinkled; there stood the

tin watering-pot full of water, but the fair gardener could

nowhere be seen.