It was a large, old garden, laid out, fifty years ago, perhaps, in a kind of pleasance; for in one place a slight hill rose above the rest, while paths wandered round it into new and unsuspected regions; in another a brook meandered and sang silverly over shining pebbles, and among arrow-heads and lily-pods, and, dallying, went its way at last to empty into some tide-streak and find the sounding sea that called to it all night. Weeds, of course, had overgrown the beds, the untrained grapes hung heavily from wall and trellis, wasps and blackbirds made merry together with the nectar of ripening pears, plum and peach dropped ungathered from the bough; vine and tendril, leaf and spray, and branch and blossom, all wrought themselves to a delicious tangle of perfume and rustle and color. Here, through the beautiful and envious weeds, a gladiolus reared his flames, a larkspur absorbed the very blue, a carnation scattered spice; here honeysuckles still blew out a perfect fragrance, while mourning-brides and gillyflowers and spiked lavender and pansies sowed the air with their old-fashioned sweetness. The soft, lonely sky stretched away over the garden and the meadows to haze itself round low and distant woods, and all the empty air seemed sad and desolate between,--the fulness and richness of life at its high noon touching close upon the anti-climax of desert solitude. Through the place a light east-wind was blowing that had in it a tonic for the lungs like the sparkle of champagne. And, somehow, through all the spaces of the neglected garden the spell of Orient seemed complete. There Orient must have stood to twine that white rose upon the porch; there her fingers must have twinkled among the young vine-leaves; there, on that bank of turf, she must many an afternoon have sat at work; there, in the shallow crystal of the brook, she had waded with white feet to set the water-plants. These lichen-covered apple-trees had shed, how many a springtime, the rosy snow of their petals around her head; these gnarled old bergamots had dropped their pulpy globes into her hands; this nut-tree put out its leaves on the day when she was born; her little feet had worn these paths. The garden was the shadow of Orient herself, reduced to dumb and to material things. He wondered what it would be by the magic of moonlight,--the whole place silvered over with tranquil sheen, and raised from every day’s dull sight into the dreamy and ideal,--full of cool dew, and silence, and holy hush, as if it waited on her white sleep. Just under his feet, where the seed had been thrown in handfuls, he traced, written out with blue forget-me-nots, the name of Orient.