of an enclosure of lofty walls, which were taller than the crests of the
pines and cypresses, his dwelling was hidden away. No sound proceeded from
it; but for the baying of the faithful Tom I do not think I should have
dared to knock on the great door, which turned slowly on its hinges. A pink
house with green shutters, half-hidden amid the sombre foliage, appears at
the end of an alley of lilacs, "which sway in the spring under the weight
of their balmy thyrsi." Before the house are the shady plane-trees, where
during the burning hours of August the cicada of the flowering ash, the
deafening cacan, concealed beneath the leaves, fills the hot atmosphere
with its eager cries, the only sound that disturbs the profound silence of
this solitude.

Before us, beyond a little wall of a height to lean upon, on an isolated
lawn, beneath the shade of great trees with interwoven boughs, a circular
basin displays its still surface, across which the skating Hydrometra
traces its wide circles. Then, suddenly, we see an opening into the most
extraordinary and unexpected of gardens; a wild park, full of strenuous
vegetation, which hides the pebbly soil in all directions; a chaos of
plants and bushes, created throughout especially to attract the insects of
the neighbourhood.

Thickets of wild laurel and dense clumps of lavender encroach upon the
paths, alternating with great bushes of coronilla, which bar the flight of
the butterfly with their yellow-winged flowers, and whose searching
fragrance embalms all the air about them.

It is as though the neighbouring mountain had one day departed, leaving
here its thistles, its dogberry-trees, its brooms, its rushes, its juniper-
bushes, its laburnums, and its spurges. There too grows the "strawberry
tree," whose red fruits wear so familiar an appearance; and tall pines, the