It
was of plaster stucco, yellow washed, peeled and broken in places,
with large dormer windows and sloping roof, one end of which was
smothered in a tangle of Virginia creeper and trumpet vine climbing
to the very chimney-top.
In front there stretched away what had once been a well-kept lawn, now
a wild of coarse grass broken only by the curving line of the driveway
and bordered by a row of Lombardy poplars with here and there a
gap,--bitten out by hungry camp-fires.
To the right rose a line of hills increasing in height as they melted
into the morning haze, and to the left lay an old-fashioned garden,--one
great sweep of bloom. With the wind over it, and blowing your way, you
were steeped in roses.
I began unconsciously to recall to myself all the traditions of this
once famous house.
Yes, there must be the window where Nancy waved good-by to her lover,
and there were the flower-beds into which he had fallen headlong from
his horse,--only a desolate corner now with the grass and tall weeds
grown quite up to the scaling wall, and the wooden shutters tightly
closed.
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