Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/19

 the rich plum with its purple, or emerald robe, and the orange-coloured pear bruising itself in its fall. Raspberries supporting themselves by the fence, interwove their branches with the bushes that lined it, as if ambitious to form an impervious hedge; while at their feet, the red and white strawberry offered its treasures. Near the same region was a small nursery of medicinal plants; for the mind which had grouped so many pleasures for the eye and the taste of man, had not put out of sight his infirmities, or forgotten where it was written, "in the garden was a sepulchre." There, arose the rough leafed sage, with its spiry efflorescence, the hoarhound foe of consumption, the aperient cumphrey, the aromatic tansy, and the bitter rue and wormwood. There, also, the healing balm was permitted to flourish, and the pungent peppermint for distillation. Large poppies, scattered here and there, perfected their latent anodyne, and hop-vines, clasping the accustomed arches, disclosed from their aromatic clusters some portion of their sedative powers. Through these scenes of odoriferous wildness Madam L often wandered, and like our first mother, amused herself by removing whatever marred its beauty, and cherishing all that heightened its excellence.

Her alert step, and animated aspect would scarcely permit the beholder to believe that the weight of almost seventy years oppressed her; though the spectacles, that aided her in distinguishing weeds from plants, proved that time had not spared to levy some tribute upon his