The four being left together naturally divided themselves into two couples. Gerald and Lina seemed fascinated by the flowery quadrangle, with its narrow walks, and ancient dial, on which the moon was now shining. They strolled slowly up and down the paths; or lingered beside the dial; or stood looking down at the fish-pond. Daphne’s restless spirit soon tired of these narrow bounds. ‘Is there nothing else to look at?’ she asked. ‘There are the stables, and the dairy, and the farm-yard. But you must see those by daylight; you must come here for a long day,’ said Edgar eagerly. ‘Would you like to see the garden on the other side of the moat?’ ‘Above all things.’ ‘It is very flat,’ said Edgar apologetically. ‘All the better for tennis.’ ‘Yes, the lawn would make a magnificent tennis-ground. We might have eight courts if we liked. But it is a very commonplace garden after South Hill.’ ‘Don’t apologise. I am sure it is nice; a dear old-fashioned sort of garden—hollyhocks, and sunflowers, and things.’ ‘My old gardener is rather proud of his hollyhocks.’ ‘Precisely; I knew he would be. And that horrid MacCloskie will hear of nothing but the newest inventions in flowers. He gives us floral figures in Euclid; floral hearthrugs sprawling over the lawn, as if one of the housemaids had taken out a Persian rug to dust it, and had forgotten to take it in again. He takes tremendous pains to build up beds like supper-dishes—ornamental salads, don’t you know—and calls that high-art gardening. I would rather have your hollyhocks and sunflowers, and the old-fashioned scented clematis climbing about everywhere in a tangled mass of sweetness.’ ‘I’m glad you like antiquated gardens,’ said Edgar. They went under the archway, which echoed the sound of their footsteps, and round by a gravel walk to the spacious lawn, and the long border which was the despair of the gardeners when they tried to fill it, and which yet provided flowers enough to keep all the sitting-rooms bright and sweet with summer bloom. The moon was high above Hawksyard by this time: a glorious harvest moon, pouring down her golden light upon tree and flower, and giving intensity to the shadows under the wall. The waters of the moat looked black, save where the moonbeams touched them; and yonder under the tall spreading walnut boughs the gravel walk was all in shadow. Daphne paced the lawn, disputing as to how many tennis-courts one might have on such on extensive parallelogram. She admired the height of the hollyhocks, and regretted that their colour did not show by moonlight. The sunflowers appeared to better advantage. ‘What awful stories poets tell about them!’ said Daphne. ‘Just look at that brazen-faced creature, smirking at the moon; just as if she had never turned her head sunwards in her life.’ Edgar was in a sentimental mood, and inclined to see things from a sentimental point of view