beautiful arrangement of the extensive grounds showed with how
prodigal a hand the owner squandered a princely fortune. The flower
garden and lawn comprised fifteen acres, and the subdivisions were
formed entirely by hedges, save that portion of the park surrounded
by a tall iron railing, where congregated a motley menagerie of
deer, bison, a Lapland reindeer, a Peruvian llama, some Cashmere
goats, a chamois, wounded and caught on the Jungfrau, and a large
white cow from Ava. This part of the inclosure was thickly studded
with large oaks, groups of beech and elm, and a few enormous cedars
which would not have shamed their sacred prototypes sighing in
Syrian breezes along the rocky gorges of Lebanon. The branches were
low and spreading, and even at mid-day the sunshine barely freckled
the cool, mossy knolls where the animals sought refuge from the
summer heat of the open and smoothly-shaven lawn. Here and there, on
the soft, green sward, was presented that vegetable antithesis, a
circlet of martinet poplars standing vis-a-vis to a clump of willows
whose long hair threw quivering, fringy shadows when the slanting
rays of dying sunlight burnished the white and purple petals
nestling among the clover tufts. Rustic seats of bark, cane and
metal were scattered through the grounds, and where the well-trimmed
numerous hedges divided the parterre, china, marble and iron vases
of varied mould, held rare creepers and lovely exotics; and rich
masses of roses swung their fragrant chalices of crimson and gold,
rivaling the glory of Paestum and of Bendemer. The elevation upon
which the house was placed commanded an extensive view of the
surrounding country. Far away to the northeast purplish gray waves
along the sky showed a range of lofty hills, and in an easterly
direction, scarcely two miles distant, glittering spires told where
the village clung to the railroad, and to a deep rushing creek,
whose sinuous course was distinctly marked by the dense growth that