“Well, it was a nice little quiet spot, any way!” said he, as he sank into a chair, and a heavy tear stole slowly along his cheek. “Maybe it would have been well for me if I never left it! With all our poverty we spent many a pleasant night beside that hearth, and many's the happy day we passed in that wood there. To be sure, we were all together, then! that makes a difference! instead of one here, another there, God knows when to meet, if ever! “I used to fret many a time about our being so poor, but I was wrong, after all, for we divided our troubles amongst us, and that left a small share for each; but there's Nelly now, pining away--I don't know for what, but I see it plain enough; and here am I myself with a heavy heart this day; and sure, who can tell if Kate, great as she is, has n't her sorrows; and poor Frank, 't is many a hard thing, perhaps, he has to bear. I believe in reality we were better then!” He arose, and walked about the room, now stopping before each well-remembered object, now shaking his head in mournful acquiescence with some unspoken regret; he went in turn through each chamber, and then, passing from the room that had been Nelly's, he descended a little zigzag, rickety stair, by which Hans had contrived to avoid injuring the gnarled branches of a fig-tree that grew beneath. Dalton now found himself in the garden; but how unlike what it had been! Once the perfection of blooming richness and taste,--the beds without a weed, the gravel trimly raked and shining, bright channels of limpid water running amid the flowers, and beautiful birds of gay plumage caged beneath the shady shrubs,--now all was overrun with rank grass and tall weeds; the fountains were dried up, the flowers trodden down,--even the stately yew hedge, the massive growth of a century, was broken by the depredations of the mountain cattle. All was waste, neglect, and desolation. “I 'd not know the place,--it is not like itself,” muttered Dalton, sorrowfully. “I never saw the like of this before. There's the elegant fine plants dying for want of care! and the rose-trees rotting just for want of a little water! To think of how he labored late and early here, and to see it now! He used to call them carnations his children: there was one Agnes, and there was another Undine--indeed, I believe that was a lily; and I think there was a Nelly, too; droll enough to make out they were Christians! but sure, they did as well; and he watched after them as close! and ay, and stranger than all, he'd sit and talk to them for hours. It's a quare world altogether; but maybe it's our own fault that it's not better; and perhaps we ought to give in more to each other's notions, and not sneer at whims and fancies when they don't please ourselves.”