the aspen tree near by. Beds of tiger lilies, pinks, larkspur,
sweetwilliams, canterbury bells, primroses, gillyflowers, lobelia,
bloomed in a luxuriance that the methodical box which bordered them
could not restrain. But the garden was by no means a blaze of sunshine,
for ash trees, maples, elms, and varieties of the pine were there.
Trumpet-vines climbed on the wall, and overtopping that, caught at
trellises prepared to receive them, and formed screens of shadows that
flickered in every breeze and changed their places with the changing
sun. But it was only with a passing glance that the visitor saw these
things, his eyes were fixed upon an arbor at the end of the garden; it
was covered with clematis, while two great elms met overhead at its
entrance and shaded the path to it for a little distance. Under these
elms stood a group of young people. He was unannounced, and had
opportunity without being himself perceived, to scan this little group
as he went forward. His expression varied with each member of it, but
showed an interest of some sort in each. Now it was full of passionate
delight; then it changed as his look fell upon a tall young man with
dark eyes and a bearing that in its most gracious moments seemed unable
to lose a touch of haughtiness, but whose face now was alive with a
restful joy. The gazer, as he perceived this happiness, so wanting in
himself, scowled with a bitter hate and looked instantly toward another
of the party, this time with an expression of triumph. At the fourth and
last member of the group his glance though scowling, was contemptuous;
but the receiver was as unconscious of contempt as he felt undeserving
of it. From him the gazer's eyes returned to the person at whom he had
first looked. She was standing on the step of the arbor, an end of the
clematis vine swaying lightly back and forth over her head, and almost
touching her bright hair which was now towered high in the fashion of
the day. She was holding a spray of the vine in her hand. She had
fastened one end in the hair of a young lady who stood beside her, and