I were experiencing the enchantment of paradise, of another Eden.
Everything was budding and blossoming; without my knowledge, during the
time that I was confined to my bed, this wonderful drama of the spring
had enacted itself upon the earth. I had not often seen this wonderful
and magical renewal which has delighted man through all the ages, and to
which only the very aged seem indifferent; it ravished me and I
allowed my joy to take possession of me almost to the point of
intoxication.--Oh! that pure, warm, soft air; the glorious sunlight and
the tender, fresh green of the young plants and the budding trees
that already cast a little shade. And in myself there was an unwonted
strength that bespoke recovery, and I rejoiced mightily when I breathed
in the sweet air and felt the flood of new life.

My brother was a tall fellow of twenty-one who had the freedom of the
house and grounds in which to work out any of his fancies. During my
convalescence I entertained myself greatly speculating about something
he was busy with in the garden, which something I was dying of
impatience to see. At the end of the yard, in a lovely nook under an
old plum tree, my brother was making a tiny lake; he had dug it out and
cemented it like a cistern, and from the country round about he procured
stones and quantities of moss with which to make the banks about the
lake romantic looking; he also constructed rocky elevations and grottoes
out of stones and mosses.

And this work was finished the day that I went out for the first time;
they had even put little gold fish into the water, and they turned on
the tiny fountain and it played in my honor.

I approached it with ecstasy, and I found that it greatly surpassed in
beauty anything that my imagination had been able to conjure up. And