Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/163

 The Glen was in holiday dress, tricked out with every art of the decorator and florist. The lovely green turf, with its sprinkling of fragrant pine-needles, might not touch the silken-clad feet of the ladies, though, and rich rugs were spread about to keep the delicate shoes from contact with mother earth's fairest carpet. The very stems of the dignified oak-trees were garlanded with colored streamers. They looked abashed at all these trappings, the poor country trees, and rustled uncomfortably at the incongruity of their appearance.

Two great elm-trees stand side by side at the lower part of the Glen, fair enough to be the scene of the revels of the fairy queen, and between their straight trunks one can look out and see the river, or arm of the sea, which washes the pebbly shore. But the simplicity of the view and its quiet beauty had evidently annoyed the perverted taste of Mr. Gray Grosvenor or his assistants, and an arch of sunflowers spanned the