That all this told upon its character and appearance was shown in the
remnants of whitewash on the high wall, scaling off in discolored
patches; in the stagger of the tall fence opposite, drooping like a
drunkard between two policemen of posts; and in the unkempt, bulging
rear of the third wall,--the front house,--stuffed with rags and tied
up with clothes-lines.
If in the purity of its youth it had ever seen better days as a
garden--but then no possible stretch of imagination, however brilliant,
could ever convert this miserable quadrangle into a garden.
It contained, of course, as all such yards do, one lone plant,--this
time a honeysuckle,--which had clambered over the front door and there
rested as if content to stay; but which later on, frightened at the
surroundings, had with one great spring cleared the slippery wall
between, reached the rain-spout above, and by its helping arm had thus
escaped to the roof and the sunlight.
It is also true that high up on this same wall there still clung the
remains of a criss-cross wooden trellis supporting the shivering
branches of an old vine, which had spent its whole life trying to grow
high enough to look over the tall fence into the yard beyond; but this
was so long ago that not even the landlord remembered the color of its
blossoms.
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