end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little court
running along one side; and a long thatched shed open towards the
garden, and supported by wooden pillars on the other. The bottom is
bounded, half by an old wall, and half by an old paling, over which we
see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, and
paling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honey-suckles, and
jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between
them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent
bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts,
breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the
buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of
rustic arcade which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds by
a row of rich geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.

I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with
the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting up
our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as thick
as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven, intertwined,
wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we may guess that
there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I know nothing so
pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower, with the eye resting
on that bright piece of colour, lighted so gloriously by the evening
sun, now catching a glimpse of the little birds as they fly rapidly in
and out of their nests--for there are always two or three birds' nests
in the thick tapestry of cherry-trees, honey-suckles, and China roses,
which cover our walls--now tracing the gay gambols of the common
butterflies as they sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer
moth, which the country people, fertile in pretty names, call the
bee-bird;[1] that bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days
over the sweetest flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small