Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/301

Rh formed his palisade; and the grapes whose drooping branches made fertile the wild savannahs. When at length allowed to go into the open air, my enjoyment was ten-fold.

We lived in a large, old, and somewhat dilapidated, place, only part of the grounds were kept up in their original high order. I used to wander in the almost deserted shrubberies, where the flowers grew in all the luxuriance of neglect over the walks, and the shrubs become trees drooped to the very ground, the boughs heavy with bloom and leaves. In the very heart of one of these was a large deep pond, almost black with the depth of shadow—One bank only was sunny, it had been turf, but one flower after another had taken possession of a situation so favourable. The rododhendronrhododendron [sic] spread its fragile blossom of the softest lilac, beside the golden glories of the Constantinople rose; a variety too of our English roses, had taken root and flourished there. There was the damask, with all its York and Lancaster associations, the white, cold as snow, the little red Ayrshire darling,