Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/210

200 railing much awry. Here and there, in the tall French windows, a pane of glass had been replaced by an unpainted board. A broken stretch of eave troughing hung from an upper facade like an unkempt tress from a faded brow. On the parched slope to the right of its main entrance wandered a flock of hungry ducks, and under the maples, beyond the ducks, hobbled a solitary and disheveled peacock, which screamed from time to time at the advent of a stranger within its domains. On the nearer side of the house, beyond parterres of weeds and brambles which might at one time have been a rose garden, stood a tilted chicken brooder which had once been painted red, and the ruins of a cider press, with a row of overturned beehives in the background.

To the south, where the lawn sloped down to the empty fountain basin and was bisected by a narrow walk along which still flamed the valiant and invincible perennials, the aspect was less ruinous. Conkling could make out iris and phlox and ragged sailor and golden glow and tiger