Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/33

 all combined to make us take a peculiar interest in this young tree, which had been the only survivor among several of the same sort that had been planted along with it.

When we had walked all round with Lucy's father, he used to take up a flat straw-basket, lay some leaves of curly brocoli in it, and go with us to the orchard, where he would gather some ripe greengages, purple plums, jargonel-pears, with, perhaps, a few late white-heart cherries, and some little red apples, red to the very core. In the south wall of the garden there was a door, leading into a place they called the wilderness; it was an uncommonly well-ordered wilderness, like everything about the premises. Through this door father used to proceed to a bench under the trees, where he caused us to sit down in a row, while he divided the fruit equally among us.

There was no underwood in this delightful retreat; the trees composing it were elms, thickly boughed plants to shelter us from the sun, but not to prevent the elastic mossy grass from flourishing underneath, nor to prevent the growth of numerous groups of large white lilies.

All the lilies in the garden had done flowering, but these, more pure and more luxuriant, through shade and shelter, were then in their full perfection, and filled the air with their delightful fragrance. The children called them sister's lilies, because when she was a child she had planted them. We generally brought pieces of bread with us, to eat with our fruit, and the wilderness being our favorite retreat, we played there at all times in the day.

Rh